Patent ID: 8738548

Claim:
A method for optimizing a quality control strategy comprising: generating, with a processor, a set of candidate quality control rules; for each candidate rule: computing a control limit that meets a false rejection criteria; computing, using the control limit, a correctible maximum by calculating how many patient samples can be tested between quality control events while keeping the number of correctible results with an error exceeding a predetermined threshold below a predetermined value; computing, using the control limit, a final maximum by calculating how many patient samples that can be tested between quality control events while keeping the number of final results with an error exceeding a predetermined threshold below a predetermined value; selecting a quality control interval size, the quality control interval size being a smallest value of the correctible maximum and the final maximum; and computing a quality control utilization rate by dividing the number of reference samples tested at each quality control event by the quality control interval size; and selecting a candidate quality control rule based on the quality control utilization rates of the set of candidate quality control rules.