Point of Care
Point-of-Care (POC) is defined as diagnostic testing at or near the site of patient care. The driving notion behind POC testing is to bring the test conveniently and immediately to the patient. This increases the likelihood that the patient will receive the results in a timely manner.
A good example of a POC test is the lithium blood test commercialized by Medimate. The chip measures the lithium concentration in within a minute and needs only one drop of whole blood. The small glass-chip houses;
- a filter for removing bloodcell,
- a reservoir for the buffer solution,
- on-chip electrodes for sample injection and ion separation by electrophoresis,
- on-chip electrodes for conductivity detection.
More information can be found in www.medimate.com