Wednesday 23 February 2011

Point-of-care testing teleconference

The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) recently announced the upcoming educational teleconference, "POCT08-A: A Point-of-Care Resource for Nonlaboratory Specialists," scheduled for Thursday, March 3, 2011, from 1:00-2:00 PM Eastern (US) Time.
This teleconference is based on the new CLSI document Quality Practices in Noninstrumented Point-of-Care Testing: An Instructional Manual and Resources for Health Care Workers; Approved Guideline (POCT08-A), and is intended to increase knowledge and quality of laboratory testing for testing personnel with no laboratory background.

The teleconference will introduce health care professionals to a new resource for managing and performing simple tests to improve patient care. POCT08-A is intended as a tool for health care professionals overseeing or performing noninstrumented tests near the patient. The session provides the basic principles of good laboratory practice along with a rich set of examples and forms to make the process simple and efficient.

At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to manage their point-of-care testing (POCT) programs using examples and recommendations from POCT08-A and its appendixes. Participants will also learn to revise their training plans on good laboratory practices for noninstrumented POCT to include information from the document, which has a basic learning level. The teleconference's expert host, and chairholder of the committee that developed POCT08-A, is Sheldon Campbell, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Register for this and other upcoming teleconferences at www.aphl.org/clsi.

APHL is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science P.A.C.E. Program. Participants will be awarded one contact hour for each program they successfully complete. P.A.C.E. is accepted by all licensure states except Florida. Florida continuing education credit will be offered based on one hour of instruction.

CLSI is a volunteer-driven, membership-supported, nonprofit organization dedicated to developing standards and guidelines for the health care and medical testing community through a consensus process that balances the perspectives of industry, government, and the health care professions. For additional information, visit the CLSI website at www.clsi.org.