Point-of-Care Testing in an Era of Laboratory Consolidation

01 May 1996

As laboratories consolidate and form networks to reduce costs and improve efficiency, some embrace POC whole-heartedly, extolling its ability to save money. Others are eliminating whatever POC testing they currently offer, investing instead in infrastructure to improve efficiency and turn around times in their central laboratories.

At a forum last summer on future trends in in vitrodiagnostics, held in conjunction with the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, two speakers addressed the point-of-care (POC) market. The first, Peter Howanitz, MD, director clinical laboratories, UCLA Medical Center, described the huge investment his institution is making in a pneumatic tube system that will support its efforts to centralize all testing, including the most common bedside test, blood glucose monitoring. In his opinion, centralization will assure high quality of test results and reduce costs, without significantly affecting turnaround times (TATs).

Two speakers later, Joseph Keffer, MD, director of clinical pathology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, explained how...