Modern blood gas analyzers often have incorporated technology that allows hemoglobin measurement on the same blood sample used to measure pH, pCO₂ and pO₂. Clinicians working in a UK neonatal intensive care department where such an instrument was routinely used for blood gases were keen to exploit the newly available...

Arterial blood is the standard sample for measurement of pH, pCO₂ and pO₂, but collection of arterial blood can be painful. Furthermore, it is a procedure associated with some risk to the patient and can therefore only be performed by trained, medically qualified staff.   Capillary blood collection by finger or...

Century City Doctors Hospital (CCDH) is a Los Angeles, California-based acute care medical center that is one of the largest physician-owned and -operated hospitals in the United States. The 178-bed facility was designed and built to be fully digital, paperless, and state-of-the-art, with integrated information...

In the majority of U.S. healthcare institutions, patient wristbands do not contain barcodes, creating a situation where patient data is manually typed into a database or point-of-care device, leaving plenty of room for error.  In light of error statistics issued by the United Kingdom’s National Patient Safety Agency...

Blood gas analysis of umbilical cord blood provides the means for establishing the acid-base status of babies at the time of birth. If there is to be any delay in sampling, the portion of cord from which the sample is to be taken should be double-clamped and thereby isolated from the placenta.  Previous studies have...

Measurement of plasma/serum sodium concentration is one of the most frequently requested blood tests in clinical practice. Although usually performed in the laboratory, the test is also available at the point of care using technology incorporated into blood gas and other point-of-care analyzers. In health, sodium...

Hypoxia and hypoxemia describe states of oxygen deficiency: hypoxia is deficiency in oxygenation at tissue or cellular level whilst hypoxemia is a suboptimal normal partial pressure of oxygen. Hypoxia and hypoxemia are interrelated, as untreated hypoxemia will ultimately result in hypoxia.  It should also be noted...

Ever since the landmark document “To err is human” [1] was released, patient safety has been the paramount objective in US hospitals. “Patient safety” became the catch phrase and focus for all activities; a trend that was rapidly taken up by the rest of the world’s hospitals. Suddenly a new catch phrase – “lean” – ...

Mock inspections are a great way to prepare for real-life inspections from regulatory agencies such as CAP and JCAHO. But where do you start? And most importantly, what should you look for? Lou Ann Wyer, Clinical Specialist, POCT at the Virginia-based Sentara Laboratory Services and Theresa Kulik, Point-of-care...

Where do you go for help, when you are a parent of a child who stops breathing while it sleeps? If you live in the south of Sweden, you go to Halmstad County Hospital, where a team of specialists are ready to monitor your sleeping child by polysomnography (PSG). The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Halmstad has ...