Introduction:

External Quality Assessment programs are an essential tool that guarantees laboratories to establish reliability in the complementary products issued.

Objective:

to analyze the results of the implementation of the PRICECLAB External Evaluation system.

Methods:

a longitudinal and prospective study was carried out during the first four-month period of the year 2023 through the performance of the network of laboratories in Pinar del Río in the determination of thirteen analytes of analytical chemistry. For this research, a review of the records of participation in this program was carried out based on the emissions of the 30 participating laboratories. For the evaluation of performance, the Variation Index, Average Variation Index and z-score were used as quality variables. The mean trimmed to 5 % was used as a measure of central tendency and the interquartile range as a measure of dispersion.

Results:

75,1 % of the reports obtained Excellent and Good evaluations. Creatinine and glucose were the determinations with the best analytical competence, unlike urea. The laboratories with the best performance were those with the smallest interquartile range, that is to say, those with the lowest quartile coefficient of variation.

Conclusions:

for the first time the implementation of the EEC PRICECLAB system is carried out under its own quality specifications for territories with limited resources. It is recommended to obtain the specification Coefficient of Variation Selected for the urea analyte and readjustment for glucose and creatinine.

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