title: Point of care: diagnostics in hemostasis--the wrong direction?
abstract: Point-of-care-testing (POCT) is performance of a laboratory assay outside the laboratory by nontrained personnel. The advantages of POCT are: more rapid medical decisions, avoidance of long sample transports, and small samples. The disadvantages of POCT are: no laboratory personnel, insufficient calibration, quality control and maintenance, poor documentation, high costs, difficult comparability POCT/central laboratory. Therefore, disposing of a 24-hour central laboratory, the POCT spectrum should be limited to the vital parameters: K+, Ca++, Na+, glucose, creatinine, blood gases, hemoglobin or hematocrit, NH3, lactate. POCT offers no advantages, if the hospital has a rapid transport system such as a pneumatic delivery to the central laboratory. The rapid diagnosis of the acute hemostasis state of a patient should be performed in the 24-hour central laboratory that is connected to all hospital wards via a good pneumatic delivery.
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers; D001792:Blood Platelets / Q000502:physiology*; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D006487:Hemostasis / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D011517:Prothrombin Time; D014227:Triazines
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014227:Triazines; C053507:4-azido-7-phenylpyrazolo-(1,5a)-1,3,5-triazine