ISO/TS 20914:2019 – a critical commentary

The long anticipated ISO/TS 20914, Medical laboratories – Practical guidance for the estimation of measurement uncertainty, became publicly available in July 2019. This ISO document is intended as a guide for the practical application of estimating uncertainty in measurement (measurement uncertainty) in a medical laboratory. In some respects, the guide does indeed meet many of its stated objectives with numerous very detailed examples. Even though it is claimed that this ISO guide is based on the Evaluation of measurement data – Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM), JCGM 100:2008, it is with some concern that we believe several important statements and statistical procedures are incorrect, with others potentially misleading. The aim of this report is to highlight the major concerns which we have identified. In particular, we believe the following items require further comment: (1) The use of coefficient of variation and its potential for misuse requires clarification, (2) pooled variance and measurement uncertainty across changes in measuring conditions has been oversimplified and is potentially misleading, (3) uncertainty in the results of estimated glomerular filtration rate do not include all known uncertainties, (4) the international normalised ratio calculation is incorrect, (5) the treatment of bias uncertainty is considered problematic, (6) the rules for evaluating combined uncertainty in functional relationships are incomplete, and (7) specific concerns with some individual statements.