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Research undertaken by the Canadian Association For Laboratory Accreditation (CALA) has found that accredited laboratories consistently out-perform non-accredited laboratories in the CALA proficiency testing program. The research findings clearly show that test results from accredited laboratories are more precise than results from non-accredited laboratories, and therefore are more reliable than results originating from non-accredited laboratories. The benefits of using an accredited laboratory in terms of precision, reliability and confidence in the results are clearly demonstrated by the research findings.
The performance of accredited and non-accredited environmental laboratories was compared in two carefully designed studies that have been published and are also available on the CALA web site (see "1997 Performance Comparison" and "2001 Performance Comparison" at http://www.cala.ca/library.html#operations_papers_and_presentations ).
CALA has continued to illustrate the advantage of accredited laboratories by posting comparative success rates for all laboratories participating in about 35 test groups two times each year ( http://www.cala.ca/pt_accred_vs_nonaccred.html ). More than 350 laboratories participate in CALA's program, 71% of which are private sector laboratories, and 29% are public sector laboratories which are associated with local, provincial and federal levels of government in Canada.