Eng. Lina Qudah participated in the 7th Workshop of Proficiency Testing in Analytical Chemistry, Microbiology and Laboratory Medicine, which was held in Istanbul during the time period from 3rd – 7th October 2011.

The workshop was organized by Eurachem and the 7th event of a series of international workshops addressing current practice and future directions of Proficiency Testing (PT) and External Quality Assessment (EQA) in Analytical Chemistry, Microbiology and Laboratory Medicine

The key objectives of the workshop included:

• Improving the organization, and promoting best practice, of PT worldwide.
• Providing forum for organizers and users of PT schemes on issues affecting the practice of PT.
• Providing input into international activities related to PT.
• Assisting participants to assess/estimate their measurement uncertainty using PT Results.
• Enable participants to have access to international PT providers; EPTIS was a participant in the workshop and a key sponsor.
• Meeting representatives of PT providers and aid projects who can help in establishing national water testing PT schemes in Jordan (i.e. BAM, ERA, DT, etc).
• A forum for meeting users of schemes and establishing networks with them for knowledge sharing and exchange of  information.

Topics discusses in the workshop included:

(1) Training Course on 3rd of October (Lecturers: Michael Koch and Marina Patriarca):
  
“Establishing Traceability and Uncertainty of Assigned Values and assisting participants to assess/estimate their measurement uncertainty using PT Results”.  

(2) Three days lectures and workshops .

Lectures key topics covered included:

• Implementing the Requirements of ISO/IEC 17043 by PT/EQA Providers
• Accrediting PT/EQA Providers to ISO/IEC 17043
• Update on the Revision of ISO 13528: Statistical Methods for Proficiency Testing by Inter-laboratory Comparison
• Proficiency Testing in Food Microbiology “AQUA” according to ISO/IEC 17043 and ISO/TS 22117
• Evaluating Participant Performance in Qualitative PT/EQA Schemes
• Establishing PT/EQA Schemes in Developing Countries-Examples from Africa
• Establishing Acceptability Criteria in Microbiology PT/EQA Schemes
• PT-Providers: Key Partners of European Metrology for Dissemination of Traceability in Analytical Chemistry

Workshops key topics covered included:

• W/S 1: Implementing the Requirements of ISO/IEC 17043 by PT/EQA Providers
• W/S 2: Accrediting PT/EQA Providers to ISO/IEC 17043
• W/S 3: Pre and post analytical aspects in PT/ EQA
• W/S 4: Evaluating Participant Performance in Qualitative PT/EQA Schemes
• W/S 5: Establishing PT/EQA Schemes in Developing Countries-Examples from Africa
• W/S 6: Establishing Acceptability Criteria in Microbiology PT/EQA Schemes