Best Practices in the Implementation of a Point of Care Testing Program: Experience From a Tertiary Care Hospital in a Developing Country

Implementation of a structured Point of Care Test (POCT) program is challenging. Traditionally POCT was unregulated and the aim was to introduce a structured POCT program at our tertiary care hospital to ensure compliance with regulatory standards. The purpose of this article is to describe how a hospital in a developing country with limited resources has approached POCT program initiative. The benefits offered by such systems, including cost-effectiveness, robustness and the ability to generate reliable accurate POCT results in a short time, are appropriate to the clinical and social needs of the developing world.