Point of Care Testing

Point of Care Testing

Point of Care Testing (POCT) is a nursing practice encompassing instant investigation and results from retrieving a patient’s illness at the point of consultation. Healthcare providers consider it a way of attaining quick assessment and treatment of patients’ ailments. POCT focuses on reducing overdependence on traditional laboratories with a centrality to improving patient care and outcome (John & Prince, 2018). POCT education has not only opened the door for me to learn numerous testing methods and procedures, it has also helped me understand various patient needs and satisfaction. Improving patients’ outcomes is the primary concern of every nursing practitioner, which is the central focus of a POCT practice.

The Healthcare system is a rapidly growing field. Many patients are becoming increasingly aware of their rights as technology ease most healthcare practices and activities. POCT is becoming more concentrated in developing and developed countries and is becoming a severe healthcare service provider. Many learning institutions have integrated POCT learning within their programs to equip learners with the necessary knowledge and skills to conduct self-assessment, peer reviews, observations, and gap analysis crucial in POCT as a medical diagnostic.

Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN-BSN) programs offer POCT-related learning programs for nursing practice students. Throughout time, the students’ instructors and the students continuously look for gaps to improve POCT services to better healthcare delivery and improve patients’ outcomes. As per the healthcare practice requirement and professionalism, they accomplish such needs and require the learners to retrieve them through a learning process. The RN-BSN program has not met all the learning needs required to improve the learners’ skills and knowledge to ensure improved patients’ outcomes. Therefore, the three learning needs not met through the RN-BSN program are possession of ethical knowledge in line with POCT practice (1), data storage during the testing (2), and taking projects related to POCT in the program (3). Most RN-BSN program students have managed to achieve several skills in testing techniques, consultation expertise, patient management techniques, and many more. However, to improve POCT practice, the student’s learning process must include the three stated learning needs.

Ethics is a crucial factor considered vital across professions in various societies. The RN-BSN program’s exclusion of ethical studies in the learning process may have several disadvantages to professional nurses. Lack of professionalism in duty includes misinformation in crucial matters relevant to the practiced course. Testing a patient without informed knowledge may result in a nurse in a court of law or jail. Therefore, including ethical studies in the RN-BSN program focus on POCT will reducing ignorance while conducting POCT to patients. Data storage and access is another crucial matter in inpatient testing and result storage. POCT is a quick process that needs a fast procedure. With advancements in technology, learners should have the necessary skills and procedures needed in the measurement, storage, and reading of results in the provided machines. Testing patients can lead to mistakes that can avail false results and misinformation. The RN-BSN program needs to equip learners with all the procedures needed in conducting all the tests conducted using the POCT practice. Students will be efficient in their professional work as nurses in both tests and data storage using modern technology. Students or learners must participate in research or practical projects before completing the RN-BSN program. Projects are significant to learners since they allow them to retrieve crucial information and expand their knowledge in POCT nursing practice.

The Learning Plan

Learning Need

Goals

To Do

Studying Ethics

1. To gain knowledge in ethical practices in POCT nursing activity.
2. To be equipped with possible repercussions following unethical practices in POCT nursing activity.
3. To uphold ethical practice in all POCT-related nursing activities.
4. Ask the students if they are aware of any ethical practice in POCT learning.
5. Find possible ethical concerns in POCT activities in nursing practices in the textbooks and the internet.
6. Give account of examples where nurses faced charges due to unethical practices while conducting POCT.

Data storage

1. To ensure no confusion while storing patients data.
2. To eliminate possible errors while conducting data storage.
3. To ensure excellent knowledge in the use of current technology in data storage.
4. Name and give the procedures needed in testing and data storage from the internet.
5. Use the textbook to retrieve possible procedures in modern data storage in nursing.

Participating in project

1. To have self-generated information on POCT practice.
2. To generate possible solutions to problems facing POCT activities in nursing practice.
3. To fill possible gaps in POCT practice.
4. To allow knowledge sharing for improved general outcome.
5. To facilitate knowledge acquisition through self-education.
6. Pick a particular project and conduct research about it.
7. To consult with the tutors about the projects.
8. Visit various healthcare facilities and consult with the patients and healthcare providers.
9. Engage in weekly group discussions to build one another.

Learning needs to facilitate the long-term improvement of knowledge acquisition and sharing among learners. POCT activity is a beneficial program that aims to improve patients’patients’ outcomes and ease nurses’nurses’ work while on duty. The RN-BSN program learning needs can effectively realize participation in course projects in line with POCT. In the nursing course, learners can participate in projects on a termly basis. Each term, students can get instructions from their instructors and project supervisors to conduct either an internet-based project or a field-based project. The termly projects can be in groups before they participate in individual projects at the end of every academic year. The process may seem like a heavy-duty on the instructors’ side, but it is a learning need in the program for an overall positive outcome in healthcare practice and nursing practice.