What Does POCT Mean?

POCT, which means point-of-care testing, is defined as medical diagnostic testing at or near the point of care. In these years, POCT received more and more attention, and we’d like to give a simple introduction in order to have a general idea about point-of-care.

What is POCT test?
POCT is medical abbreviation of Point-of-care testing, also known as bedside testing. It’s a form of testing which is designed to be used at or near the site where the patient is located.

Point-of-care testing do not require permanent dedicated space, they could be performed outside the physical facilities of the clinical laboratory. In practice, the point-of-care products which are easy to operate could be used in variant healthcare situations. For example, at home for self-testing, in the pharmacy, in the hospital or clinic, in an ambulance etc. Physicians and medical staff are capable to obtain accurate, real-time, lab-quality diagnostic results within minutes.

What is an example of point of care testing?
POCT products are more common than you think in our daily life. There is a typical example which can help us understand point-of-care testing. POCT blood glucose is aimed at diabetes patients who need to monitor the value of glucose maybe serval times a day.

As chronic disease, diabetes occur when the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin or the body cannot effectively use the produced insulin. Hyperglycemia or elevated blood glucose is a common result of uncontrolled diabetes. It can cause serious damage to many systems of the body over time, especially nerves and blood vessels. Therefore, it’s important for diabetics to record their blood sugar value and to observe change of data all the time. They can’t go to hospital for blood glucose three times a day everyday. Point-of care blood glucose testing enables patients of diabetes to take self-test at home and to obtain the blood sugar level in a real-time, which provides them a great convenience.

There are also many other devices for blood testing, like point-of-care HGB testing. It could detect the concentration of Hemoglobin and calculate Hematocrit in capillary and venous human whole blood. In several healthcare situations, this POC testing might replace traditional laboratory testing. For instance, when we need a rapid Hb measurement to analyze if the patients have anemia, the conventional process may take serval hours while the POCT device is capable to display the result within minutes.

CAT VS POCT
Compared to traditional control automation technology (CAT) with big and expensive facilities, POCT uses portable and low-cost devices which could be operated by doctors and nurses instead of professional laboratory technician.
The reagent package of laboratory equipment could take multiple tests, however, the reagent of POCT devices focuses on a single test, and provides rapid answers directly to patients’ need for care. In that way, POCT is able to reduce significantly the time that passes between clinical tests and the arrival of results. This period is known as turn-around-time (TAT). By simplifying the testing process, clinicians can focus on what matters most—providing effective, quality patient care.

At the meantime, different from conventional laboratory equipment that needs complicated maintenance and frequent calibration, POCT products have fewer consumables and don’t require much maintenance.

Advantages of POCT
In consequence, there are many advantages of POCT:

1. Fast
The main purpose of POCT is to get experimental results faster. The advancement of diagnosis and assistive technology, the awareness of the disease and the improvement of treatment level are the main reasons why POCT is gradually attracting attention (financial pressure is a secondary factor). These advances have enabled some diseases to be diagnosed and treated better.

2. Easy to use
Easy to operate and easy to use is another feature of POCT. Due to this character, POCT has become a part of the diagnostic system and has assumed the functions of a laboratory without the need for traditional hospital laboratory equipment. POCT can be done in a doctor’s office or in a moving car without limitation of location.

3. Save overall cost
The biggest problem facing experimenters is to control the cost of diagnosis. But the result is always a reduction in the cost of a single test, rather than a reduction in the overall cost of the patient’s entire medical treatment process. From the perspective of “single test cost”, POCT is relatively high. But in many cases, the application of POCT can not only improve experimental results but also reduce resource occupation, patient hospitalization time, sampling time, and medical staff occupation time

Application of POCT
The operation of point-of-care testing devices can be as simple as a thermometer or the basic pulse/oximeter. Besides, POCT has a wide range of clinical applications from basic blood-glucose measurement to complex viscoelastic coagulation assays. In families, it could be used to monitor blood sugar, in the hospital or clinics, there is also a large demand for point-of-care products.

Why is POCT so important?
Point-of-care products have developed rapidly in recent years. Why we attach more and more importance to POCT products?

People’s health concepts are gradually changing, and daily healthcare management is more and more valued. Different from the traditional diagnosis model which puts the hospital as the center, treatment location changes to the communities and families, which means people want to monitor more frequently their health situation by themselves. POCT products meet perfectly this demand.
With the widespread application of computer science, physics, mathematics, immunology, molecular biology, and other technologies in the medical field, diagnostic technology has made breakthrough progress, and simple, fast, accurate, and high-throughput detection becomes possible. With the in-depth research of basic medicine, new technologies have been introduced into the POCT industry. The results of POCT are more reliable.
Due to characters of POCT, POC products could help the medical staff to focus on what matters the most and get the answer quickly in some emergency situations. It also helps to simplify the procedure of the test, saving time and money of doctors and patients. By the way, if more POCT products can be used in home scenarios, they can help hospitals to divert patients and facilitate hierarchical diagnosis and treatment.
In a word, with the development of modern technologies, there are two different trends in medical devices: one proceeds with high technology, the accuracy of the result and integrated equipment, another pursues simplicity, the convenience of device and pays attention to personal health management. POC products meet perfectly the demands of the second trend which is overwhelming.

What Point-of-care testing products does BLZ offer?
BLZ Medical is a professional manufacture of advanced medical devices, we have already passed the ISO 13485 medical device quality management system certification, and provide some POCT solutions.

HB-200 HGB Hemoglobin Analyzer: a portable meter that could detect the concentration of Hemoglobin and calculate Hematocrit in capillary and venous human whole blood.
FL400 Immunoassay Analyzer: this device based on specific antigen-antibody reactions and could display the concentration of certain test items, including diabetes markers, cardiac markers, infection markers, tumor markers, hormone markers, and others.
COVID 19 SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test: convenient test kit for SARS-CoV-2 antigen, easy to use, and you could obtain results within 15 minutes.

Point-of-care testing is likely to play a role more and more important in health care. It is not a replacement for conventional laboratory testing but rather a supplement to it. In the future, POCT products may quietly penetrate into every corner of people’s lives like mobile phones, computers, and other digital products. Miniaturized, fool-like automatic inspection systems will be available everywhere and available at any time, becoming the necessities of first on-site inspection、first-time inspection and family health management.

BLZ Technology Co., Ltd
Room 2166, 2176 Building E, Cyberport Dongxing Road, East Lake New Technology Development Zone, 430074, Wuhan, China
E-mail：info@blz-med.com
Tel：+86-27-65520255
Web: blz-med.com

BLZ Technology Co., Ltd is a technology innovation company. We develop and produce advanced medical devices and offer intelligent solutions.
BLZ Tech is founded by Doctors, and have our own R&D centers and production base in China, we also have several representative offices, reaching a complete network of R&D, production, sales, and service.

This release was published on openPR.