Principles & Practices of Point-of-Care Testing. Gerald J. Kost, ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2002, 672 pp., $95.00, cloth. ISBN: 0-7817-3156-9

Abstract

This book is intended for laboratory personnel, practicing physicians, and nurses involved in point-of-care testing (POCT). It is organized into six parts, containing forty chapters. Each part, or chapter, can be used separately depending on the reader’s needs and expertise.Part I presents the guidelines by which laboratory tests can be performed outside of the laboratory by medical and nursing staff. It stresses that a coordinating committee for all POCT issues should be organized and explains how this can be achieved. The committee’s main purpose is to ensure that the quality of testing is not compromised, yet a rapid turn-around time of tests is accomplished by the non-laboratory personnel, whose main responsibility and concern is the care of patients. The transcription of test results into the patients’ records and the quality-control data performed on these tests is another issue that must be followed very closely by the committee.