Assessing Performance of i-STAT at the Point of Care in the Emergency Room:

摘要

Context:Point-of-care testing (POCT) for blood gas and chemistries is widely adopted in the emergency department (ED) for fast turnaround and critical medical decisions.Objective:To assess performance of ED physicians compared to laboratory technologists carrying out i-STAT analysis. Impact of user skill on POCT performance was also studied.Design:Over a 3-month period, ED physicians performed tests with their i-STAT unit with parallel blood specimens (n=60) sent to the central laboratory to be tested on another i-STAT unit and laboratory analysers (blood gas and chemistries). Comparisons to laboratory results (obtained with ABL 520 and Beckman-Coulter LX20PRO) were carried out. Two operators from ED and central laboratory performed side by side, repeated tests on the i-STAT units. Their overall within-run imprecision were compared. The analytical performance of i-STAT was further assessed by another laboratory technologist to verify its capability to deliver good results.Results:Platform comparisons show...