Point-of-Care Devices in Healthcare: A Public Health Perspective

Point-of-Care (POC) devices enable medical interventions, such as testing, to be performed near the patient and often by the patient. It has been suggested that the use of POC devices will change medicine from a symptom/diagnosis/treatment endeavor to a monitoring/prediction/prevention exercise. The rate at which this area introduces innovation and discovery is high, although a majority of such devices are currently utilized for screening purposes. This article discusses the public health benefits of POC devices in terms of patient engagement, health inequality, health promotion and their impact on healthcare system. Low-cost screening clinics that use POC devices ultimately help reduce health inequality in developing countries and remote areas. The article also outlines the issues hindering the benefits of using POC such as connectivity, integration and data management, and calibration. Further, it suggests a framework to present and evaluate POC devices used in the healthcare industry. We argue that having such a framework provides a set of measures to evaluate and select POC for various tasks. The scope of this study is limited to medical-grade devices used at home or in clinics, aged care facilities, and hospital settings.