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Article
January 2004
The challenges of point-of-care testing, mate
Minimizing costs? Quality assurance? Training? Simpler devices? acutecaretesting.org asked four healthcare professionals in Australia and New Zealand what they saw as the main challenges of POCT.
Answers were broad in spectrum. Nevertheless, three challenges were (directly or indirectly) mentioned repeatedly:...
Point-of-care testing
Article
October 2003
Benchmarking as part of competency testing
Like many hospitals throughout the world, the Princess Royal Hospital in Sussex, England has set up a quality assurance (QA) scheme to verify the competency of glucose-meter operators. Their scoring system, however is anything but typical.
Instead of relying solely on individual results, the system also uses...
Quality assurance
Point-of-care testing
Glucose
Article
October 2003
Are we ready for the outbreak of an epidemic?
That is the question the Hvidovre Hospital had to ask itself in May 2003, when the Danish National Board of Health and the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation appointed it to be one of the country's three key sites for receiving and treating SARS patients.
Once appointed, the hospital began a painstaking process of...
Point-of-care testing
Article
October 2003
Pulse oximetry vs. transcutaneous monitoring in neonates: practical aspects
Non-invasive monitoring of oxygenation has become a standard procedure in neonatal critical care. Both transcutaneous pO2 (tcpO2) monitors and pulse oximeters involve methodological and practical issues that should be known to those using these devices in infants.
tcpO2 measurements are influenced by skin thickness, ...
Neonatology
Hemoglobins
Article
October 2003
Useful tips to avoid preanalytical errors in blood gas testing: electrolytes
Preanalytical errors are said to be the reason for up to 75 % [1] of all errors in laboratory medicine. The diagnostic consequences depend on the magnitude of the preanalytical error.
In worst case, these errors may lead to mistreatment of patients; in all cases, these errors are an extra workload for the hospital...
Preanalytical phase
Electrolytes
Quality assurance
Glucose
Hemoglobins
Blood gases/acid-base
Article
October 2003
Proficiency testing versus QC-data-comparison programs
Evaluation of the quality of the total testing process of a laboratory is very important to assure that the results supplied by the laboratory are correct and can be used for decisions by the personnel ordering the tests. In this paper Proficiency Testing (PT) or External Quality Assessment (EQA) is described.
PT is...
Quality assurance
Article
September 2003
Transcutaneous monitoring - a Danish approach
Danish neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are known
throughout the world for practicing minimal handling. Because it is
non-invasive, transcutaneous monitoring of pO2
and pCO2 plays an important role in this
setup.
acutecaretesting.org has interviewed Professor Gorm
Greisen, MD, Dr. Med. Sci., and Head of the...
Neonatology
Article
September 2003
Principles and problems of blood glucose measurement
Although blood glucose measurement is commonly performed, the use of a whole-blood sample introduces complications and compromise in terms of the assay principle, the method of calibration and the expression of results.
Most point-of-care systems are calibrated against a method chosen by the manufacturer for...
Glucose
Preanalytical phase
Article
Article
July 2003
The EU IVD Directive (98/79 EC) - a user’s point of view
The Directive is a complex and detailed document and in the following the author focuses on some of the items that are particularly important for the user to be aware of.
Most of the rules will apply to the manufacturers and the public and the users will take advantage of the rulings if they become aware of their...
Quality assurance
Glucose