Problems with the external quality assessment of accuracy of point of care devices (POCD) for blood glucose are independent of sample composition.

This short article describes the results obtained in both internal and external quality assessment of point of care devices (POCD) for the monitoring of blood glucose. The results show that the use of synthetic, serum and whole blood matrices for the samples do not markedly change the inaccuracy of measurement. It is only possible to check precision of POC devices for glucose in external quality assessment (EQA) surveys for POC devices for blood glucose. The majority of devices used in point of care testing for blood glucose had acceptable (im)precision. The applications and limitations of the use of POC devices for blood glucose must be clearly defined before allowing their use in patient care programmes. Finally, the results confirm that the decision of the German Federal Medical Council (Bundesärztekammer) to exclude POC devices from accuracy checks against a reference method procedure in national EQA surveys was correct, at least at the present time.