Point-of-care testing informatics.

Managing patient test data and documenting regulatory compliance for tests performed at the point of care have traditionally been significant problems. In many situations, manual record-keeping has proven entirely inadequate for maintaining the integrity of the patient medical record or for providing an audit trail for quality assurance activities. Starting in the 1990s, a number of companies began to develop and market point-of-care data management systems. Over time, these data management systems have become increasingly sophisticated. It is now possible to interface multiple point-of-care devices from different manufacturers to a central data manager that is bidirectionally interfaced to the laboratory and hospital information systems. Despite these advances, many challenges remain. True real-time point-of-care "connectivity" across an entire institution has yet to be achieved, and there is still no satisfactory solution for manually performed visually read tests, some of which are commonly performed at the point of care. In the future, wireless point-of-care connectivity solutions hold great promise, but these technologies are yet to be fully developed.