Record a QC Run and Read the Levey-Jennings Dashboard

Who / when: Chika, a lab scientist on the chemistry bench, runs known control material every morning before patient samples; Dr. Bello, the lab admin, reads the dashboard to watch each analyzer for drift. Quality Control (QC = Quality Control) is how a lab proves its results can be trusted. Veona runs known control material through the same analyzer as patient samples, judges each measurement against the Westgard rules, and holds any run that fails — so a drifting instrument is caught before a single patient result goes out.

Key terms: a control lot is a batch of known-value control material with a target mean and a standard deviation (SD) for each analyte and level; a QC run is one measurement of that control. The Westgard rules are the standard pass/fail checks that look at the new point and recent history. A Levey-Jennings chart is the standard QC trend chart — recent runs plotted by how many SDs they sit from the mean.

We’ll follow Chika recording a morning run, then Dr. Bello reading the dashboard.

1. Lab Scientist — open Labs → QC & Audit and press “Record QC Run”.
2. Lab Scientist — pick the Analyte, the Control Level (the level of control material you ran), and enter the measured Value. You can type the Lot label or leave it blank to match the active control lot for that analyte and level.
3. Lab Scientist — record it. Veona immediately evaluates the run against the control lot’s target mean and SD over the run history, and tells you the outcome: how many SDs the point sits from the mean, any Westgard rule that fired, and the disposition — accept, warning or reject.
4. Lab Admin — open Labs → QC Dashboard for the whole picture. For each active control lot and level it shows the trailing-30-day in-control / warning / reject counts, the latest disposition, any open rule violations, and a Levey-Jennings chart — the last 30 runs as dots coloured green (accept), amber (warning) or red (reject) by their distance from the mean. A glance shows drift or scatter before it becomes a failed result.

Note

The Westgard rules Veona checks: 1-2s — one point beyond ±2 SD, a warning only, never a reject on its own. 1-3s — one point beyond ±3 SD, reject. 2-2s — two consecutive points beyond the same ±2 SD, reject. R-4s — consecutive points span ≥4 SD on opposite sides, reject. 4-1s — four consecutive beyond the same ±1 SD, reject. 10x — ten consecutive on the same side of the mean, reject. The disposition is reject if any reject rule fires; otherwise warning if 1-2s fired; otherwise accept.

Caution

The dashboard reads the control lots — the target mean and SD per analyte and level — that were set up as part of QC configuration. If a lot’s targets are wrong, the rules judge against the wrong band. Configuring lots is a Lab Admin task; a Lab Scientist can record and view QC but not configure lots.

What happens next

A run that fails a reject rule is held and surfaces as an open violation on the dashboard. That is exactly the kind of event you turn into a documented, signed fix — raise it as a corrective action so the problem and its resolution are on the record for an accreditor to see. From a reject you’d typically re-run the control, fix the cause, then carry the incident through to a closed CAPA.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Reschedule or Cancel an Imaging Study
• Next: Set Turnaround-Time Targets and Watch for Breaches
• Related: Raise and Close a Corrective Action (CAPA)
• Related: Enter a Lab Result by Hand and Release It