Online-qualitätssicherung patientennaher sofortdiagnostik (point-of-care-testing) unter nutzung des kommunikations-systems des krankenhauses

The new guidelines of the German Bundesärztekammer for quality assurance of quantitative laboratory analyses (RiliBÄK), enacted on 01.01.2002, also have impacts on point-of-care testing (POCT) in clinical settings. The University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar has realized an online-quality assurance scheme of all decentralized POCT by using the hospital information system. All blood gas and glucose POC systems were successively linked to the core laboratory. There, all internal quality assurance data are validated and documented by the use of two central servers with appropriate software tools. The quality control records are maintained electronically for five years. The supervising POC manager also responds to out-of-control situations by giving hints to the testing personnel for remedial action. Additionally, online-transmitted individual patient test results are transformed into cumulative reports and re-transferred to the clinics by the same network. External quality control is solely performed by the core laboratory. Our new online-quality assurance scheme already led to a more economic use of POCT.