Informatics and technology are the keys to the successful integration of POCT into Critical Care medicine, as well as into the entire spectrum of patient care. Data integration of POCT results is not only necessary for patient management but also for quality assurance and billing purposes. In the first article, Dr. Kenneth Blick from the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US, presents his views on the key role of information management in modern critical care medicine. His basic thesis is that today s physicians taking care of critically ill patients require laboratory results in real-time and, if possible, at the patient s bedside. This translates into a demand for laboratories to utilize information technology and those laboratories without an overall plan for data management of critical care testing will probably not survive.
Technology is always a driving force for change.
The article by Dr. Lawrence Kricka from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, discusses how micro miniaturization of analytical procedures will have a significant impact on all aspects of diagnostic testing as we move into the 21st century. He states that not only can it have a significant impact on healthcare costs via timely intervention and monitoring, combined with improved treatments but that it will empower consumers to perform self testing via personal laboratories. Dr. Kricka predicts that the latter will produce a level of self-awareness of biochemical and genetic information hitherto unimaginable. Obviously, despite technological improvements, POCT will not be a viable form of diagnostic testing unless there are appropriate clinical and operational benefits associated with its implementation. The third article in this issue, by Dr. Paul Holloway and co-workers from John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, UK, describes an application of POCT in critical care medicine.