42 |
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden · 2 2013
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
NKK: Norsk Klinisk-kjemisk
Kvalitetssikring
Norwegian EQA Program for Medical
Biochemistry
Background
NKK is a nonprofit organization established by NSMB
(Norwegian Society for Medical Biochemistry) in 1976
to serve Norwegian laboratories within medical bio-
chemistry in the fields of EQA, standardization and
other quality development issues.
NKK now offers EQA schemes mainly from other
Nordic organizations like Labquality, NOKLUS, DEKS
and Equalis but also from ECAT in the Netherlands
and UKNEQAS from England. All Norwegian labora-
tories within the field of medical biochemistry (about
one hundred) participate regularly in a selection of
about 70 different EQA schemes. As NKK was establis-
hed by NSMB with customers primarily from the main
hospital laboratories, the other laboratory disciplines
(e.g. microbiology, genetics, immunology) organize
their own EQA programs.
NKK has one full time and three part time employ-
ees situated at NOKLUS Senter in Bergen and at Fürst
Medical Laboratory in Oslo. The board has three mem-
bers appointed by NSMB including the NSMB leader.
NKK has one expert group consisting of 4 members,
also appointed by NSMB.
NKK is not a certified or accredited organization.
Development of EQA activities
The service started in 1976 by distributing freeze dried
serum 2 – 4 times a year to be measured during several
weeks for the most frequently requested components
in medical biochemistry.
The structure of NKK changed in 1986 as NSMB
formally established the non-profit organization with
an expert committee of five members. In 1992 the
leader of the expert committee was hired as the leader
of NKK and a formalized cooperation with Labquality,
Finland was established. At the same time NOKLUS
was established to organize quality assurance for the
general clinical practitioners and a close cooperation
with NKK was established, especially from 1996 when
NOKLUS Senter provided the hospitals with an EQA
scheme in hematology and from 2000 also in coagula-
tion. Since 2011 NKK has organized a pre-analytical
EQA scheme available for Norwegian participants.
Other services
NKK is a distributer of different types of materials
from other Nordic EQA organizations, e.g. INR cali-
brators from EQUALIS, NFKK Reference Serum X
from DEKS etc.
The NKK web site is created to give the medical
laboratories updated information on EQA services
and quality assurance issues in general (e.g. guideli-
nes/spreadsheets to help the laboratories in method
validation issues) and links to other web sites with
relevant information.
Each year NKK organizes a two day user meeting
for the participants (usually approximately 120 par-
ticipants).
Future developments
NKK intend to work towards a quality assurance accre-
ditation/certification of its organization.
References
The figure shows
how the total number
of surveys sent to
Norwegian medical
laboratories (y axis)
has changed between
2005 and 2012.
