The management of point of care testing at St. Luke's Hospital.

Abstract

For Point of Care Testing ( POCT) to be beneficial it requires effective organisation and management of staff. Management issues particular to POCT include training, instructions for use, standard operating procedures (SOP), health and safety, quality assurance, maintenance, accreditation, record keeping and adverse incident reporting. The working hypothesis of this project is "POCT at St. luke's Hospital is not being managed according to international standards" A cross sectional study performed on the wards gave information on the management at ward level. Survey response was 90%. Tests are performed mainly by nurses and health assistants. Regarding training, respondents of 14 wards (32%) said they received no training. Furthermore, the 30 (68%) who did receive training stated that they received no training on quality control and adverse incidents. On quality control, 38 respondents (86%) said that none is performed. Respondents from a similar number of wards, 35 (80%) said they perform no maintenance on the POCT instruments. No responder was aware of laboratory involvement or of the existence of a POCT Coordinator. The interviews confirmed that there is no POCT steering committee nor a POCT Coordinator. The laboratory is hardly involved in managing POCT. POCT is not being managed according to international standards on all the issues (mentioned above) studied.