A system and method to automatically implement quality control of a clinical diagnostic process are disclosed. Upon generation of an internal error flag, a confirmation rule automatically checks a questionable patient statistic alert by testing a quality control specimen, applying event-related quality control rules to the results of that test, and provides an alert to the operator only upon a confirmed patient signal. The automatic quality control process thus eliminates the uncertainty of operator reaction to an alert signal and implements the quality control run automatically, without operator intervention.