Objective
The Network Participants have:
- Proposed quality specifications for measurement of lead in blood and aluminium in serum and will be applying these to a comparison of analytical performance by laboratories throughout the EU;
-Identified variations in the implementation of EU legislation and considered the implications of these on analytical quality specifications and the organisation of EQA schemes;
-Documented the repertoires and other management information of laboratories participating in the EQA schemes;
-Prepared an audit of the organisational and managerial practices within the EQA schemes to identify those areas of common practice and those where mutual recognition would be possible;
-Proposed a mechanism to facilitate harmonisation among schemes and to enable the establishment of new cross-national EQA activities;
-Developed a culture that is now able to embrace metrological concepts and is seeking to (i) similarly educate scheme participants (ii) apply these to the organisation of EQA schemes;
-Submitted one paper for publication, prepared two others that are almost ready for submission and presented one paper at a scientific conference.
Undue exposure to harmful agents may occur at work or from environmental sources. Measurements of exposure are achieved by determination of the agent involved (or of a metabolite) in an appropriate specimen (urine, blood). Such measurements are also necessary to the follow-up of incidents of overt toxicity. Biological monitoring is an essential activity and is undertaken in many laboratories throughout the EU. As the determination of accurate results is crucial it is important that properly validated methods are used and that independent assessments of performance (external quality assessment, EQA) are undertaken. However, it has been demonstrated that different EQA schemes have the potential to give conflicting conclusions, even from the same raw data. EQA organisers have identified topics for closer collaboration within a Thematic Network to resolve these disparities and to promote improvements in analytical performance for biological monitoring.
Objectives
The objectives of this Thematic Network are:
- to harmonise the goals of individual schemes with respect to setting common standards for laboratory performance, and the provision of mutual support;
- to undertake programmes of education and training for laboratories involved in occupational and/or environmental medicine.
Work programme
1) Develop standards of performance for the measurement of lead and aluminium to meet national and EU requirements;
2) Coordinate national activities in gathering information from participants, such as workload, methodologies, changes in performance and to prepare reports on current status temporal changes and best practice;
3) Initiate collaborative work and avoid duplication of effort among different schemes;
4) Education and training: Create a European database of laboratories and activities in occupational and environmental medicine; agree a list of common themes for inclusion in formal training course/technical workshops; prepare educational and/or training literature and publications etc. for distance learning programmes; organise meetings to discuss immediate problems and topics of interest.
State of progress
This project starts in January 1999.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry post-transition metals
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Programme(s)
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
GU2 7XH GUILDFORD
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.