ONPS 2425/6
Assignment 2
Introduction of POCT
In order to improve patient access and patient throughput, a management review of the requirements for a rural (outreach) diabetes treatment clinic has
established the need to provide POCT for glucose and HbA1c. You have been asked to supervise the introduction of appropriate POCT devices for these two tests.
Provide recommendations and justification for your choice of glucose and HbA1c devices. Summarise your recommendations on how this may be achieved and the
on-going operational procedures required in order to provide quality results for patient testing. Include in your answer recommendations with regard to:
Critical evaluation of testing devices which provide results appropriate to clinical requirements (i.e. is the chosen device fit for purpose ?)
Pre-analytical considerations
o Instructions for patient preparation and sample collection
o Patient safety and risk management
o Operator training and on-going competency assessment
Analytical considerations
o Frequency and type of quality control (QC)
o Recording of QC, action limits and procedures to be followed with QC failure
o External quality assessment (EQA) procedures
o Device maintenance and performance records
Post-analytical
o Instructions for the recording / reporting of results
Post implementation follow-up and confirmation of performance requirements
Resources to use:
Prescribed textbook “ Point-of-care testing. Needs, opportunity and innovation. Edited by CP Price, A St John and LJ Kricka. AACC Press, 2010.
o MJ Pearson. Equipment procurement and implementation. Chapter 17.
o JP Gill and L Watkinson. Quality control and quality assurance in POCT. Chapter 18.
AACB POCT Implementation Guidelines
RCPA QAP website
Westgard website
Company literature
Medicare website
Structure:
Title page: Your executive summary must have a title page with the project title, your name and student number.
Recommendations = Written (executive) summary: Provide a written summary justifying your recommendations. Word limit = 1000 words.
Justification = Excel spread sheet: Develop two spreadsheets (one for each analyte) to be presented in the one workbook. Each of these spreadsheets should
critically compare devices against your selection criteria.
Referencing: Vancouver style
Due date: see course guide document for due date
Submission: For this assignment, there are two separate submission links “ one for the summary word document and the other for the excel document
File submission: Submitted files should be named with your surname, student number and Assign 2.
Marks: 10% of course (5% written summary and 5% for the spreadsheets)
