How to Get the Most Out of the Digital Academy for Laboratory Learning

External quality assessment (EQA) gives laboratories a vital snapshot of performance, but understanding why results vary, how different methods behave, and what actions to take next is just as important.

To support this deeper understanding, UK NEQAS IIA provides the Digital Academy: a collection of EQA educational resources designed to complement programme participation and support quality assurance best practice education across immunology, immunochemistry, allergy, and related laboratory disciplines.

What is the UK NEQAS IIA Digital Academy?

The Digital Academy is an online library of educational materials developed by UK NEQAS IIA specialists and contributors from across the laboratory medicine community. Rather than acting as a general training platform, it is closely aligned with real-world quality assurance challenges and EQA experience, supporting clinical laboratory education in practice.

Resources include educational commentaries, publications, webinars, presentations, videos, and recorded discussions. Many draw directly on EQA findings, surveys, and long-term performance data, helping laboratories understand not just what the results show, but why variation occurs and how practice can be improved.

Who is the Digital Academy for?

The Digital Academy is designed for laboratory professionals working across immunology, immunochemistry, and allergy, including clinical and biomedical scientists, quality managers, and laboratory leads. It is particularly valuable for laboratories participating in UK NEQAS IIA EQA programmes, but resources are relevant to anyone involved in diagnostic testing, result interpretation, or quality assurance.

Materials support both routine clinical work and ongoing professional development, and are used by laboratories in the UK and internationally as part of wider laboratory learning resources and training activities.

How the Digital Academy supports EQA participation

External quality assessments identify how a laboratory is performing, but educational insight helps explain performance and guide improvement, and the Digital Academy plays a key role in bridging this gap through structured EQA educational resources.

Educational resources explore common analytical and interpretative challenges seen across EQA schemes, provide insight into method-specific variability, and offer guidance on understanding both qualitative and quantitative performance data. The content is grounded in real laboratory experience and reflects current standards and emerging quality assurance best practice education.

For many laboratories, the Digital Academy resources are most useful when reviewed alongside EQA reports, for example, when investigating unexpected results, exploring method-related differences, or discussing trends highlighted by cumulative performance data. This helps ensure EQA outcomes lead to informed action rather than isolated review.

How to use the Digital Academy effectively

The Digital Academy is designed to be flexible, allowing laboratories to engage with content in a way that suits their needs. Many users begin by focusing on subject areas aligned with their testing portfolio, such as immunology, immunochemistry, allergy, neuroimmunology, or EQA-related topics.

Resources are available in a range of formats, from concise educational commentaries to in-depth webinars and recorded presentations. Choosing the right format often depends on context, a commentary may be useful for clarifying a specific issues, while a webinar may provide broader insight into emerging methodologies or shared challenges across laboratories. Together, these formats form practical laboratory learning resources that can be revisited as needed.

Why educational resources matter in quality assurance

Quality assurance is not only about meeting thresholds or achieving acceptable scores. It depends on understanding the factors that influence results, recognising sources or variability, and applying best practice consistently.

Educational resources within the Digital Academy help laboratories:

• Build confidence in analytical and interpretive performance
• Identify sources of variability and error
• Highlight opportunities for improvement
• Stay aligned with current standards. 

By combining EQA participation with targeted education, laboratories are better equipped to maintain reliable, comparable results that ultimately support patient care.

Accessing the Digital Academy

Registered members can log in to access all available materials. New users can register to explore Digital Academy content and make full use of all the laboratory learning resources to support ongoing education and quality assurance activity.