Overcrowding of the emergency department (ED) is rapidly becoming a global challenge and a major source of concern for emergency physicians. The evaluation of cardiac biomarkers is critical for confirming diagnoses and expediting treatment decisions to reduce overcrowding, however, physicians currently face the dilemma of choosing between slow and accurate central-based laboratory tests, or fas...

BACKGROUND In the emergency department, portable point-of-care testing (POCT) coagulation devices may facilitate stroke patient care by providing rapid International Normalized Ratio (INR) measurement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the reliability, validity, and impact on clinical decision-making of a POCT device for INR testing in the setting of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). MET...

Next-generation POCT devices for infectious diseases will improve disease management.

OBJECTIVE Published literature from resource-limited settings is infrequent, although urinary tract infections (UTI) are a common cause of outpatient presentation and antibiotic use. Point-of-care test (POCT) interpretation relates to antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance. We aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of POCT and their role in UTI antibiotic stewardship. METHODS One-year retr...

Background: Despite decades of HIV prevention efforts, new infections continue in Canada. Access to and ease of HIV testing remains an important element for both HIV prevention and treatment. As it currently stands, HIV testing in Nova Scotia involves accessing a health care provider, non-nominal testing through the STD clinic at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre, or one of two anon...

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to evaluate the comparability of the new neonatal bilirubin method on the RapidLab 1265 blood gas analyzer. This point-of-care testing (POCT) device has the option for the determination of neonatal bilirubin, making it potentially valuable for use in neonate intensive care units or in outpatient ambulances. METHODS We paired 240 patient samples for intermet...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world with 80% of cardiovascular events that occur in low- and middle-income countries. Reliable data on the prevalence of risk factors in developing countries can be obtained in door-to-door epidemiologic studies with the use of automatic instruments. This study was performed to assess the sensitivity and specificity of a low-cost and...

The existing health care systems focus on treating diseases rather than preventing them. Patients are generally not tested unless physiological symptoms are appeared. When they do get tested, the results often take several days and can be inconclusive if the disease is at an early stage. In order to facilitate the diagnostics process and make tests more readily available for patients, the conce...

INTRODUCTION From September 2005 to February 2007 the Australian Government funded the Point of Care Testing (PoCT) in General Practice Trial, a multi-centre, cluster randomised controlled trial to determine the safety, clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and satisfaction of PoCT in General Practice. In total, 53 practices (23 control and 30 intervention) based in urban, rural or remote ...

Abstract Background Metabolic and electrolyte imbalances are some of the reversible causes cardiac arrest can be diagnosed even in pre-hospital setting with a mobile analyser for point-of-care testing (POCT). Methods We conducted retrospective observational study, which included analysing all resuscitations study region between October 2015 December 2016. A POCT (Alere epoc®) was available at s...