Losing ground on HbA1c

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Buried in the proposed updates to the CLIA regulations was a concerning step backwards: rather than adopt the CAP/NGSP performance specification of 6% allowable total error, CLIA proposed adopting a much more permissive goal of 10%.

https://www.captodayonline.com/idea-to-ease-pt-standard-for-hba1c-stirs-alarm/

It has been good to see that most organizations have uniformly condemned this backward step. The decades of effort behind improving HbA1c testing is put at risk if this goal is degraded. There's no sense of how the CMS and CLIA regulations will respond to this feedback, but we can be optimistic that they will defer to the overwhelming consensus of the industry.