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The Economic Benefits Of Point-Of-Care Testing

The Economic Benefits Of Point-Of-Care Testing The Economic Benefits Of Point-Of-Care Testing The Economic Benefits Of Point-Of-Care Testing

Healthcare organizations continue to be challenged with escalating costs and decreased funding, which make it even more difficult to deliver quality services to a broad patient population.

To control costs while maintaining a high quality of care, providers are looking to: 

  • Generate efficiency gains
  • Eliminate waste
  • Optimize processes
  • Drive the appropriate utilization of resources

In addition to the obvious benefits to medical staff and patients, there are economic benefits that can result from the adoption of a with-patient testing platform. Improved efficiencies and productivity, simplified processes and procedures, as well as decreased specimen packaging and transportation time can lower the total cost of care. While up to 70% of medical decisions are based on laboratory tests1, they only account for estimates between 3-6%2 of total patient-care costs. Costs of POC testing, compared to core laboratory testing (whether centralized or outsourced), can provide even faster decision-making and potential major economic savings.2

Rapid turnaround times, improved decision times, and time-critical decision-making can result in total savings between 8-20% of laboratory costs for facilities that implement POC testing.2

The total savings realized due to the decreased cost of waiting for results can be as much as €148 per patient2.* For those that implement POC testing, wait times may be reduced by 46 minutes per patient2.

*Figures represent savings at time the study was conducted.

References

  1. Forseman, Rodney W. Why is the laboratory an afterthought for manage care organizations” Clinical Chemistry Volume 415 (1996) 813:8162
  2. Schilling UM. The economic benefits of point-of-care testing. Hospital Healthcare Europe, special supplement. www.hospitalhealthcare.com

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