Optimizing all the steps in the testing cycle is as crucial to the success of point-of-care testing (POCT) as the measurement process itself. The complete POCT process or testing cycle is a complex series of events that involve many parties in any organization.  Consultation with all the people concerned is vital and ...

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is one of the most rapidly growing areas within laboratory medicine. The need for POCT has developed because in many cases the central laboratory has been unable to meet the expectations of clinical users, particularly with respect to turnaround time. It is widely recognized that...

Arterial blood gas analysis is a test most frequently performed on critically ill patients in the emergency room, recovery room and intensive care unit by nursing staff. One of the main purposes of the test is assessment of acid-base status, which is often disturbed during critical illness. This article is intended...

The understanding and management of ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) relationships represents a cornerstone of intensive care unit (ICU) patient management.  The physiologic shunt calculation can reliably reflect the degree of gas exchange attributable to intrapulmonary disease or intracardiac shunting regardless of other ...

In the U.S. all clinical laboratory determinations, including blood gas testing performed at point of care (POC) or in the central laboratory, is regulated by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA).  Congress passed CLIA to ensure accurate, reliable, and timely test results regardless of...

When it comes to acid base, there is no getting around the name of Ole Siggaard-Andersen (OSA). acutecaretesting.org talks to the world-renowned Danish professor, who has become a legend in the field of blood gas.

Measurement of glucose and lactate after 30 minutes of storage at room temperature can give deviating results of up to 5 % [1,2] and 29 % of the reference value [3] respectively [1,4], due to in vitro glycolysis Glucose and lactate are both important parameters in the surveillance of patients in critical care...

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:...

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...

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...