How well do clinics and laboratories handle quality-control management? Most of them have their own QC processes but little idea how they compare with similar practices. Measuring one’s QC diligence in relation to other facilities may be helpful and illuminating.
In a poster now on display at the International Society for In Vitro Fertilization World Congress in Barcelona, Giles Palmer of the London Women’s Clinic, and his colleagues examine the adoption of Reflections by IVFqc around the world. The study proposes and develops a new metric—the Mean Average Data (MAD) score—to assess rigor and consistency in quality-control monitoring.
A MAD score is the mean average of total datapoint entries divided by the total number of instruments being monitored. Higher MAD scores indicate greater monitoring diligence.
Reflections gives laboratories the ability to create multiple log plans for the collection and organization of datapoints; to store them securely in the cloud for access on-site and remotely with any internet-connected device; and to analyze and report on them in innumerable self-customizable ways.
Laboratories may then determine the MAD score and see how it might improve over time. The score is thus a new factor in effective QC management.
For more information, and to compare your MAD score vis-à-vis thirty-six laboratories under examination, please see the full article and editorial commentary, published in Reproductive Biomedicine Online.

Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!