[Usefulness of POCT in critical care medicine]

The need for speedy and accurate test results is becoming increasingly urgent in the areas of emergency medicine and ICU. The form of emergency testing is changing from conventional testing conducted by laboratory technicians to point-of-care testing (POCT) performed by the doctor or nurse. Therefore, the skill and time of the technician, which used to be expended for emergency testing, is now utilized for maintenance and precision control of POCT equipment so that the doctors and nurses can conduct POCT with confidence at all times. We also attempted point of prehospital care testing (POPCT), comprised of prehospital care and POCT. Here, the laboratory technician rides with the doctor to provide patient information to the clinicians from the perspective of a laboratory technician in the field to support emergency treatment. This has not yet been made fully practical, but the usefulness of POCT in critical care medicine seems to be essential to the forthcoming advanced emergency medicine, considering its usefulness outside the hospital environment.