title: Implementing a point-of-care testing program in the critical care setting.
abstract: Clearly, there are important reasons for both the critical care area and the laboratory to improve efficiencies wherever possible and at the same time maintaining or improving quality. POCT, when implemented in a way that fits the individual system, can accomplish both of those objectives. By all accounts, the trend toward providing POCT will continue, particularly in the critical care units where TAT of the most important STAT tests is of the utmost importance in providing the best possible patient care. To support that trend, critical care clinicians need to closely work with experts in laboratory medicine to bring the expertise of the laboratory to the patient's bedside, where quick and accurate results are needed. By working together, critical care clinicians and laboratorians can create quality POCT programs in the critical care unit, which can meet the needs of both clinicians and laboratorians and, most of all, the critically ill patients in our care.
authors.forename: Karen K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Giuliano
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Perkins
mesh_terms: D003422:Critical Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010934:Planning Techniques; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016730:Program Development; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014193:Trauma Centers / Q000458:organization & administration; D014481:United States