A Study on the Evaluation of Analytical Performance for Industrial Hygiene Laboratory in Korea

우리나라 작업환경측정기관 분석능력에 관한 고찰

Quality Control programs for industrial hygiene laboratory have successfully been operated since the 1st round was initiated in April 1992. Three rounds have been completed. Overall analytical performance of participants was improved through a subsquent round. The first round had a large variation among analytical results of all participants, 26.34%~504.22% of coefficient of variation. But the variation of analytical performance in the 2nd and 3rd rounds decreased to 40.42%~52.55% and 10.74%~20.98%, respectively. The difference of analytical performance among participants was decreased by operation of subsquent round. By distribution of Running Performance Index (RPI), over 50% of participants belongs to Category 3 in the first round. The average percentage of participants assigned to Category 3 in the 2nd and 3rd round was decreased to 37.2%. A definite analytical performance improvement of participants seems to be obtained. "A" and "B" group have more participants assigned to Category 3 than those of "C" group through the distribution of RPI by group divided to similar participant. By the distribution of RPI all participants, the percent of participant being over 200 RPI in the 1st round was 43%~52%, but decreased to 9%~29% and 9%~27%, in the 2nd and 3rd round, respectively. These results mentioned above indicate that the analytical performance of all participants have been improved by subsquent Quality Control Program although newcomers joined and a few participants droped out. But, there are some participants with poor analytical performance. Industrial Health Research Institute (IHRI) will offer service such as education, communication and visitation to them, and improve quality of their analytical performance in the future.