POCT Analysts' Perspective: Practices and Wants for Improvement

Point-of-care testing (POCT) continues to expand worldwide. Concerns remain about result quality despite guidelines and standards that specify testing practices. To better understand POCT testing worldwide, we polled analysts to obtain their views on actual practices and needs for improvement.

An online questionnaire was constructed on SurveyMonkey, a commercially available website for conducting such surveys. POCT analysts were sought worldwide from a pool of healthcare providers subscribed to a westgard.com newsletter or visitors to westgard.com and/or LinkedIn to one of the authors.

Seventy-three percent of testing occurred in hospitals with 64% conducted in specialty settings. Regulatory mandates were followed by 88%. For most, less than 100 tests were performed per day fewer less than 25 devices. Nurses top the list of analysts. All but 5% of analysts received some form of training primarily from manufacturers. Eighty-seven percent verified devices/methods prior to implementation. Five percent do not perform daily QC; all analyzed external QC at least once per month. When QC limits exceed acceptable limits, 92% stop testing. Expired materials were used by 5%. The majority collected data for quality improvements. Eleven percent thought their organization's POCT is acceptable. The majority of respondents believe improvements need to be made in POCT.

Analysts' POCT practices have and are improving to contribute positively to patients' healthcare and safety. Analysts do recognize problems and their wants/needs provide important information to improve their practices. Most participants desire more in-house and/or manufacturer training, explicit directions from manufacturers, manufacturer built-in quality and function checks, and oversight.