Point-of-care Testing: From Rapid Testing to Better Outcomes Book

The message is clear -- the technology now exists to deliver diagnostic tests at the point of care. With this technology comes new opportunities, benefits, and challenges: The opportunities to put patients at the center of healthcare delivery; the benefits of quicker and better decision making about healthcare interventions; and the challenges of ensuring that the required quality of testing can be achieved and that the process of care is changed in order to deliver the healthcare outcomes and economic advantages that POCT has been shown to provide. Supporting a systems approach to healthcare delivery, POCT empowers caregivers and patients to accept these new technologies in the way they have accepted now-ubiquitous technologies such as mobile phones, handheld computers, and satellite navigation systems into other aspects of their lives. And POCT challenges policymakers and healthcare managers to think seriously about what we all espouse in our mission statements about healthcare -- that the patient comes first. Healthcare professionals involved in making policy decisions about healthcare delivery, and those involved in managing it, will find this book a must-have resource for understanding the following key aspects of point-of-care testing: How POCT began, why it is recommended, where it is used, and the technology that supports it; how POCT is organized and managed; POCT's rightful place in current and future healthcare delivery systems; the advantages of incorporating POCT into the patient care pathway, and its impact on healthcare economics; how case studies from peer-reviewed literature are demonstrating the potential utility of POCT in the healthcare environment; and how to change clinical practice to maximize the benefits from testing at the point of care.Read More