Comparison of glucometers used in hospitals and in outpatient settings with the laboratory reference method in a tertiary care hospital in Mumbai

BACKGROUND: Glucometers allow self-monitoring of blood glucose in a convenient manner. With the availability of various glucometers, there is a persistent attempt to improve the accuracy and the precision of these glucometer readings, so as to match the laboratory values of blood glucose. OBJECTIVE: We compared the glucometers used in hospital and out-patient settings with the laboratory reference method. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed a total of 105 blood samples collected from in-patient and out-patient from our tertiary care hospital. Venous blood samples were collected and checked on six glucometers and the same blood sample was sent to the laboratory for glucose estimation. The laboratory value was used as a reference for comparison. The accuracy was evaluated by the ISO criteria. The results were evaluated by Bland Altman graphs, correlation coefficients, scatter plots and Clarke's error grid analysis. RESULTS: We observed good correlation between bed side glucometer and laboratory automated analyzer. Among the in-patient glucometers Breeze 2, Performa and SureStep, the correlation coefficient was 0.97, 0.96 and 0.88 respectively. Among the outpatient glucometers One touch ultra 2, Active and Contour, the correlation coefficient was 0.97, 0.97 and 0.95 respectively. CONCLUSIONS: There is a good correlation between different glucometers and laboratory values especially in the out-patient settings. Among all in-patient glucometers, SureStep by Johnson and Johnson had least correlation coefficient, whereas all three out-patient glucometers correlated well with the laboratory values.