Basic Planning for Quality: Training in Analytical Quality Management for Healthcare Laboratories. James O. Westgard. Madison, WI: Westgard QC, Inc., 2000, 272 pp., $60. ISBN 1-886958-13-0.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This volume is James Westgard’s third desktop-published book and follows Basic Method Validation: Training in Analytical Quality Management for Healthcare Laboratories and Basic QC Practices: Training in Statistical Quality Control for Healthcare Laboratories. All of the chapters of Basic Planning are on the World Wide Web (www.westgard.com) and handily accompany Westgard’s QC Validator Program (list price of $495). Unlike the web version, the desktop-published version has an abundance of Hagar the Horrible cartoons (King Features Syndicate). Both contain a sprinkling of vintage medical laboratory cartoons by John Meyer. The title of the book is misleading; it focuses on the optimization of quality control using a commercially available computer program rather than on the broad topic of quality. The book contains 18 chapters and 4 appendices (my copy had an extra introduction because of a printing error). The premise underlying this book is that quality-control practices should be customized for the individual laboratory and individual analytes. The laboratorian starts with analytical performance and total error specifications for an individual analyte [usually from CLIA’s proficiency testing limits or physiologically based intra- and interindividual variation (the so-called European Biologic Goals)]. Both sets of specifications are contained in the appendices. The total error specifications and analytical performance are transformed by Westgard’s QC Validator Program to obtain “OPSpecs Charts”, which are then interpreted to select the optimal quality-control procedure. The theory and application of OPSpecs Charts have been well described by Westgard in print (Clinical Chemistry, MLO, and even Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine) and on his web site. The preponderance of the book serves to explain the OPSpecs Chart to the initiate (the first 15 chapters contain ∼40 of these charts and 150 references to the charts). It also provides a rationale for customized quality-control rules in general chemistry, blood gas analysis, immunochemistry, hematology, and coagulation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.080 | 0.062 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".