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. 2016 Aug;33(4):388-94.
doi: 10.1093/fampra/cmw018. Epub 2016 Apr 5.

Point-of-care testing in UK primary care: a survey to establish clinical needs

Philip J Turner  1 , Ann Van den Bruel  2 , Caroline H D Jones  2 , Annette Plüddemann  2 , Carl Heneghan  2 , Matthew J Thompson  3 , Christopher P Price  2 , Jeremy Howick  2
Affiliations

Point-of-care testing in UK primary care: a survey to establish clinical needs

Philip J Turner et al. Fam Pract. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

Background: A number of point-of-care diagnostic tests are commercially available in the UK, however, not much is known regarding GPs' desire for these tests or the clinical areas of interest.

Objective: We sought to establish for which conditions point-of-care tests (POCTs) would be most helpful to UK GPs for diagnosis, reduction of referrals, and monitoring of chronic conditions.

Methods: A total of 1635 regionally representative GPs were invited to complete an online cross-sectional survey between 31 September and 16 October 2012.

Results: A total of 1109 (68%) GPs responded to the survey. The most frequently cited conditions were urinary tract infections for diagnosis (47% of respondents), pulmonary embolism/deep vein thrombosis for referral reduction (47%) and international normalized ratio/anticoagulation for monitoring (49%).

Conclusions: This survey has identified the conditions for which UK GPs would find POCTs most helpful. Comments by respondents suggest that quite radical system-level adjustments will be required to allow primary care clinicians to capitalize on the potential benefits of POCTs.

Keywords: Cross-sectional studies; diagnostic tests; general practitioners; point-of-care; primary health care; surveys and questionnaires..

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