Traceability in Laboratory Medicine

BACKGROUND: In patient and population samples gen-eration of analytical results that are comparable and independent of the measurement system, time, and lo-cation is essential for the utility of laboratory informa-tion supplied in healthcare. Obtaining analytical mea-surement results with such characteristics is the aim of traceability in laboratorymedicine. As awareness of the benefits of having traceable measurement results has increased, associated efforts have been directed toward making traceability a regulatory requirement and de-veloping approaches to enable and facilitate the imple-mentation of traceability. Although traceability has been a main focus of many laboratory standardization activities in the past, discussions are still ongoing with regard to traceability and its implementation