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...

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...

England's Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals have a POCT system they consider a success. This is a roadmap of the steps they have taken.

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...

Since the mid 1990's Point of Care Testing (POCT) has been viewed as a solution to a declared need for Short Turn Around Testing (STAT).  However, is it being utilized in a way that meets the needs of improving patient care and hospital quality assurance? What is STAT testing, why and how did it become POCT? How is...

According to the Hvidovre Hospital, standardizing is a must if POCT is to run optimally. In the first article of the series "POCT setups for blood gas", acutecaretesting.org interviews the Danish hospital on how they have successfully implemented POCT.

It is more and more common that computer-based systems in hospitals are serviced or "looked after" by service engineers dialing in from remote locations.  The combination of highly computerized laboratory equipment and the emerging network technologies makes remote support a very attractive possibility. In many...

Preparing for an accreditation inspection is often synonymous with carts full of paper. For some labs, though, the paper hassle associated with accreditation is now history. These labs are letting their data management systems do all the work.

The measurement of the electrolytes in blood is one of the most frequently performed measurements as the electrolytes are of major physiological importance for numerous functions of the body. Analysis of electrolytes such as sodium and potassium are performed in the traditional clinical chemistry laboratory, but are...

Children are not just small adults, and present unique challenges to the clinical laboratory. Blood specimens must be very small; for example, total blood volumes in a premature infant can be as small as 115 mL. Genetic diseases frequently must be detected in the newborn period. Reference values change with age....