POC testing: the hospital bedside haemostasis market
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Coagulation testing products for use at the hospital bedside have been available for over three decades. International Technidyne Corporation (ITC) was the early pioneer, introducing the Hemochron point-of-care (POC) coagulation analyser in the 1970s for use in hospital operating rooms and other sites. Medtronic is another long-time supplier of POC coagulation systems. A number of new companies have since entered the market, including Roche Diagnostics, Pharmanetics (now part of Helena Labs), Instrumentation Laboratory (IL) and i-STAT/Abbott. POC platelet function testing, which is used to monitor patients undergoing platelet inhibitor therapy, comprises a growing segment of the market, and this is being addressed by companies including Siemens, Accumetrics, Helena Labs and Bio/Data.