1. The Research Question
Title: Current and future use of point-of-care test in primary care: an international survey in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States Jeremy Howick & 16 other authors from 5 countries
The Question: Which point of care (POC) tests do primary care clinicians use and which tests would they like to use in the future?
Why this is important?
Little is known about which clinical conditions Primary Care clinicians identify as priorities for these tests
We aimed to determine patterns of current use of POCTs by General Practitioners (Family Doctors), and clinical conditions identified as priorities for future development and implementation for diagnosis, monitoring, and referral
Tests identified as important in this survey have the potential to improve healthcare
BP34 Adherence to Antibiotic Prescribing for LRTI and Association With Recovery (Oral Presentation On Completed Research) Nick Francis, MD, PhD, Cardiff University; David Gillespie; Jacqueline Nuttall; Paul Little; Theo Verheij; Samuel Coenen; Jochen Cals; Kerenza Hood; Herman Goossens; Christopher Butler

2. What the Researchers Did
Subjects/Design: Cross-sectional survey of 2770 primary care clinicians in Australia, Belgium (Flanders), the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Method
We asked respondents to :
Identify conditions for which POC tests could help them inform diagnosis
Evaluate (from a list we provided) which POC tests they currently use
Evaluate (from the same list) which POC test they would like to use in the future
aged ≥18 years, consulting with an illness where an acute or worsened cough was the main or dominant symptom, or had a clinical presentation that suggested a lower respiratory tract infection that had been present for ≥28 days.

3. What the Researchers Found
Conditions prioritized for POCT were
acute conditions (infections, acute cardiac disease, pulmonary embolism/deep vein thrombosis), and some chronic conditions (diabetes, anemia).
Most commonly used tests currently are urine pregnancy, urine leukocytes or nitrite, and blood glucose.
The most commonly reported tests respondents expressed desire for use: D-dimer, troponin, and chlamydia.
The United Kingdom and United States reported a higher actual and desired use for POC tests than Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

4. What This Means for Clinical Practice
Current use of POCT is generally limited, but differences exist between countries
Primary care doctors in all 5 countries indicated desire for POCT use for range of acute and chronic conditions.
Introducing cost-effective POC tests has the potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient care.