2025 · Scandinavian journal of primary health care · open access
Validation of point-of-care tests used at in-home assessments among older adults in primary care
Smedemark et al.
The finding, in our words
This study of acutely ill older adults found that in-home point-of-care testing provided clinically reliable results, with strong correlations observed between on-site analysis and routine laboratory testing. While venous samples showed lower misclassification rates, capillary blood offered a pragmatic alternative for decentralised diagnostics despite higher variation.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
The homeRNA capillary blood collection and stabilization platform successfully captured lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory gene expression profiles. These transcriptomic responses were comparable to those obtained from traditional venous blood samples stabilized with RNAlater or PAXgene, demonstrating the platform's suitability for remote transcriptomic monitoring.
In pregnant women at high risk of gestational diabetes, the GTT@home capillary glucose device showed a small positive bias of 0.16 mmol/L versus venous laboratory OGTT, with 79.8 per cent of results in the lowest surveillance risk zone and diagnostic classification agreement in 54 of 61 cases, suggesting it could support home OGTT in pregnancy.
The True Dose TD-EPI kit demonstrated strong analytical agreement with venous blood for epirubicin monitoring, and the capillary samples remained stable for 72 hours at ambient temperature.
This UK consensus opinion outlines how clinical laboratories can validate self-collected capillary blood sampling against venous reference standards to achieve accreditation and facilitate the shift towards community-based patient care.
Capillary blood samples collected by staff or self-collected by participants showed strong correlation and clinically acceptable agreement with venipuncture for influenza haemagglutination inhibition titers. The small differences observed were not clinically meaningful, and adequate sample volume was achieved in most attempts, supporting the feasibility of decentralised serological testing.