Revision of the “Guideline of the German Medical Association on Quality Assurance in Medical Laboratory Examinations – Rili-BAEK” (unauthorized translation)

in the spring of 2008 in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt -the German Medical Association's official international bilingual science journal.At that time, the Guideline comprised Chapter A, Part B1 and Chapter C, D and E, thus specifying basic requirements for quality assurance in medical laboratory examinations and requirements for conducting external quality assurance programmes.In subsequent years, additions were made to the guideline designated Parts B2, B3, B4 and B5.Also, Expert Groups for these respective parts were installed to supervise and further develop the external quality assurance programmes.