Point of Care Devices in limited settings

DELHI, India - Nov. 27, 2023 - PRLog -- What are Point-of-care medical devices

Point-of-care medical devices are in vitro diagnostics used by health care professionals to obtain results rapidly near or at the site of a patient, which facilitates disease diagnosis, monitoring, and management.

The conventional clinical diagnostic procedure requires high-end and costly instruments, an expert technician for operation and result interpretation, longer time, etc. that ultimately makes it exhausting and expensive.

Uses of POCT

POCT can be used for:

• Therapeutic Aid: Early detection of lifestyle related diseases like diabetes, Hypertension anemia, hyperlipidemia,etc.
• Preventive measures: Targeted Screening in high risk groups. e.g. checking for diseases in patients with positive family history or pregnant females or elderly populations.
• Surveillance measures: Monitoring blood sugars, vitals for eg:  Blood pressure
• Infectious disease screening  : Timely and efficient screening of infectious diseases like Malaria, HIV, Dengue hence also identifying the endemic nature of the disease.
• POCT in conjunction with EHR (Electronic Health Record) and Telemedicine are a boon in resource limited settings.

Need of POC devices in Indian healthcare system.

India is a growing economy and a hotspot for market investments; however, it is constantly facing challenges concerning the public healthcare system. The country has a huge resource gap of over 4 million health workers; nearly 60% of the existing personnel work in urban areas whereas 70% of the Indian population lives in rural areas. This makes it even more challenging to deliver and maintain the healthcare facilities in resource-limited outreach areas. POC diagnostic devices have been used as a preliminary step in screening the disease that can help in the reduction of burden on the medical ecosystem.

POC tests reduce the TAT drastically, which is necessary and effective in managing critical cases. .Integrating with appropriate software, POC test results can be stored in the medical database and shared with healthcare workers through a software instantly.

Criteria for identifying a reliable and accurate POC device.

World Health Organization (WHO) has laid down 'ASSURED' criteria for POC tests in resource-limited settings; (i) affordable (by those at risk), (ii) sensitive (few false negatives), (iii) specific (few false positive), (iv) user-friendly (simple to perform and needs minimum training), (v) rapid (producing results within few minutes) and robust (rigid storage conditions), (vi) equipment free (no complex system), (vii) delivered (to needy) . Therefore, the devices fulfilling the above criteria have the potential application in the Indian healthcare system.

The HealthCube device ecosystem abides the guidelines by WHO.

Get in touch to know more- https://healthcubed.com/contact-us/