A physician office analyzer. Evaluation of quality of results obtained by technical and nontechnical personnel

We evaluated the Abbott Vision analyzer (Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, Ill) both in a controlled laboratory setting and with several untrained individuals. We used control serum samples supplied by the manufacturer. Method comparison was performed with methods currently in use in our laboratory. The analytes evaluated were glucose, urea nitrogen, urate, cholesterol, triglycerides, and alkaline phosphatase. In the laboratory, the within-run precision (coefficient of variation) of all methods ranged from 0.8% to 3.4%; the range for between-run precision was 1.2% to 3.3%. Correlation between the Abbott Vision analyzer and routine methods was excellent. The upper limit of linearity for all methods was as stated by the manufacturer. The coefficient of variation obtained by ten nontechnical personnel ranged from 0.0% to 3.9%. The correlation between results obtained by the nontechnologist were excellent. Our study indicates the Abbott Vision analyzer is extremely easy to operate and provides reliable results in the hands of nontechnical personnel.