Acute care testing - Blood gases and electrolytes at the point of care

This article describes the performance of blood gas and electrolyte testing at the point of care in acute-care situations. Economic issues pertaining to laboratory costs and the costs associated with an overall episode of car e are reviewed in the context of the cost of quality and patient satisfacti on. A discussion of the analytic issues focuses on preanalytic specimen han dling and postanalytic result reporting and how these tasks can be handled. This discussion is presented in the context of how one institution changed its paradigm regarding acute-care testing and the resulting effect of poin t-of-care testing on patient care.