UNASSIGNED: The use of point-of-care (POC) tests prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was relatively infrequent outside of the health care context. Little is known about how public opinions regarding POC tests have changed during the pandemic.
UNASSIGNED: We redeployed a validated survey to uncompensated volunteers to assess preferences for point-of-care testing (POCT) benefits and concerns between June and September 2022. We received a total of 292 completed surveys. Linear regression analysis was used to compare differences in survey average response scores (ARSs) from 2020 to 2022.
UNASSIGNED: Respondent ARSs indicated agreement for all 16 POCT benefits in 2022. Of 14 POCT concerns, there were only 2 statements that respondents agreed with most frequently, which were that \"Insurance might not cover the costs of the POC test\" (ARS 0.9, ± 1.0) and \"POC tests might not provide a definitive result\" (ARS 0.1, ± 1.0). Additionally, when comparing survey responses from 2020 to 2022, we observed 8 significant trends for POCT harms and benefits.
UNASSIGNED: The public\'s opinion on POC tests has become more favorable over time. However, concerns regarding the affordability and reliability of POCT results persist. We suggest that stakeholders address these concerns by developing accurate POC tests that continue to improve care and facilitate access to health care for all.

UNASSIGNED: Studies of current opinion of our community members for the characteristics, mode, and location of use, use cases, and overall enthusiasm for point-of-care testing (POCT) diagnosis and management tools are needed.
UNASSIGNED: Qualitative research methods were used to develop, refine, and evaluate hardcopy and electronic versions of a 45-item English language survey. The accuracy of the instrument was measured by recorded structured interview, and its precision was measured by comparison to its administration to a group of uncompensated volunteers.
UNASSIGNED: Comparison of survey and structured interview data demonstrated high levels of accuracy. Highly concordant with significant levels of correlation and of direct association indicated favorable precision. Ninety-three percent of respondents believed that POCT could improve their care, and 56% identified having a POCT in their home as a top priority. Accuracy, insurance coverage, immediacy of results, and ease of use were identified as the most important characteristics of a POCT.
UNASSIGNED: Community members strongly support the development of accurate, in-home devices that produce immediate results that can be used to diagnose, manage, and encourage their adherence to treatments for their medical conditions.

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Point-of-Care Technologies (POCT) in Healthcare have emerged as a potential pathway in global and resource-limited environments towards improving access to healthcare with emphasis on preventive, personalized and precision medicine. The potential uses for POC technologies by patients or clinicians are many-from home-based monitoring to semi-managed and clinical inpatient healthcare. However, it is yet to be proven precisely what technologies are necessary or how they should be used to make an impact in improving access to quality healthcare. Although there is great potential for the application of new technologies in healthcare, physicians are skeptical about POCT since they fear it will generate large amounts of unreliable and overwhelming information of unknown benefit. Because the benefits and acceptance of POCT are unknown, a necessary first step in its development is performing market research of patients and clinicians to determine what POCT protocols would be most beneficial and acceptable. Research into POCT involves first understanding what the needs are of patients and clinicians, and then researching the best way to apply new technology to improve clinical care based on the understanding of these needs. The conference featured 5 keynote, 8 panel and 4 breakout sessions involving leaders from several stakeholder groups, including technology research, federal funding and regulatory agencies, industry and clinical healthcare. Through numerous presentations and group discussions, the conference participants concluded that the future of POCT depends upon facilitation of collaborative translational research towards development and meaningful validation of POCT in addressing specific healthcare and clinical needs with clear benefits and user acceptance.

Elevated intracranial fluid volume can drive intracranial pressure increases, which can potentially result in numerous neurological complications or death. This study\'s focus was to develop a passive skin patch sensor for the head that would non-invasively measure cranial fluid volume shifts. The sensor consists of a single baseline component configured into a rectangular planar spiral with a self-resonant frequency response when impinged upon by external radio frequency sweeps. Fluid volume changes (10 mL increments) were detected through cranial bone using the sensor on a dry human skull model. Preliminary human tests utilized two sensors to determine feasibility of detecting fluid volume shifts in the complex environment of the human body. The correlation between fluid volume changes and shifts in the first resonance frequency using the dry human skull was classified as a second order polynomial with R² = 0.97. During preliminary and secondary human tests, a ≈24 MHz and an average of ≈45.07 MHz shifts in the principal resonant frequency were measured respectively, corresponding to the induced cephalad bio-fluid shifts. This electromagnetic resonant sensor may provide a non-invasive method to monitor shifts in fluid volume and assist with medical scenarios including stroke, cerebral hemorrhage, concussion, or monitoring intracranial pressure.

Recent advances in biosensors, medical instrumentation, and information processing and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled significant improvements in healthcare. However, these technologies have been mainly applied in clinical environments, such as hospitals and healthcare facilities, under managed care by well-trained and specialized individuals. The global challenge of providing quality healthcare at affordable cost leads to the proposed paradigm of P reventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine that requires a seamless use of technology and infrastructure support for patients and healthcare providers at point-of-care (POC) locations including homes, semi or pre-clinical facilities, and hospitals. The complexity of the global healthcare challenge necessitates strong collaborative interdisciplinary synergies involving all stakeholder groups including academia, federal research institutions, industry, regulatory agencies, and clinical communities. It is critical to evolve with collaborative efforts on the translation of research to technology development toward clinical validation and potential healthcare applications. This special issue is focused on technology innovation and translational research for POC applications with potential impact in improving global healthcare in the respective areas. Some of these papers were presented at the NIH-IEEE Strategic Conference on Healthcare Innovations and POC Technologies for Precision Medicine (HI-POCT) held at the NIH on November 9-10, 2015. The papers included in the Special Issue provide a spectrum of critical issues and collaborative resources on translational research of advanced POC devices and ICT into global healthcare environment.

The commercialization of new point of care technologies holds great potential in facilitating and advancing precision medicine in heart, lung, blood, and sleep (HLBS) disorders. The delivery of individually tailored health care to a patient depends on how well that patient\'s health condition can be interrogated and monitored. Point of care technologies may enable access to rapid and cost-effective interrogation of a patient\'s health condition in near real time. Currently, physiological data are largely limited to single-time-point collection at the hospital or clinic, whereas critical information on some conditions must be collected in the home, when symptoms occur, or at regular intervals over time. A variety of HLBS disorders are highly dependent on transient variables, such as patient activity level, environment, time of day, and so on. Consequently, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute sponsored a request for applications to support the development and commercialization of novel point-of-care technologies through small businesses (RFA-HL-14-011 and RFA-HL-14-017). Three of the supported research projects are described to highlight particular point-of-care needs for HLBS disorders and the breadth of emerging technologies. While significant obstacles remain to the commercialization of such technologies, these advancements will be required to achieve precision medicine.

This paper summarizes the panel discussion at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Point-of-Care Healthcare Technology Conference (POCHT 2013) held in Bangalore India from Jan 16-18, 2013. Modern medicine has witnessed interdisciplinary technology innovations in healthcare with a continuous growth in life expectancy across the globe. However, there is also a growing global concern on the affordability of rapidly rising healthcare costs. To provide quality healthcare at reasonable costs, there has to be a convergence of preventive, personalized, and precision medicine with the help of technology innovations across the entire spectrum of point-of-care (POC) to critical care at hospitals. The first IEEE EMBS Special Topic POCHT conference held in Bangalore, India provided an international forum with clinicians, healthcare providers, industry experts, innovators, researchers, and students to define clinical needs and technology solutions toward commercialization and translation to clinical applications across different environments and infrastructures. This paper presents a summary of discussions that took place during the keynote presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions on needs, challenges, and technology innovations in POC technologies toward improving global healthcare. Also presented is an overview of challenges and trends in developing and developed economies with respect to priority clinical needs, technology innovations in medical devices, translational engineering, information and communication technologies, infrastructure support, and patient and clinician acceptance of POC healthcare technologies.