HOSPITAL POINT-OF-CARE TESTING ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS

Course overview

Point-of-care testing (POCT) has seen tremendous growth in the past 10 years both in type and number of tests. A large hospital with 60 laboratory testing personnel may have 1300 people certified to do whole blood glucose testing alone, making the ratio of nonlaboratory to laboratory test personnel 20:1 or more. Because the hospital laboratory typically has oversight responsibility for some or all of the POCT done in a hospital, laboratory personnel must understand what is going on with POCT and how it can directly impact the main hospital's laboratory operation. POCT has unique quality and regulatory issues that dictate a cascade of actions and responsibilities impacting all testing areas and all testing personnel. Proficiency-testing failures in POCT areas can pose a special risk to the main laboratory and even cause the main laboratory to cease testing for an analyte that failed proficiency testing on a POCT device. These and other issues related to POCT testing in hospitals are reviewed. Processes to create sustainable testing reliability and regulatory compliance while significantly reducing risk are discussed.