Abstract

In the recent issue of CCLM a paper has been published on the view of the German Working Group on Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) (1). The issue of POCT is extremely important and rightly the authors stress the responsibility of the head of the laboratory. However, they omit to refer to two important documents relating to POCT from the European Communities Confederation of Clinical Chemistry (EC4): one on the essential criteria for quality systems of medical laboratories (2) and another on the additional essential criteria for quality systems of medical laboratories (3), the latter addressing in particular POCT. Both of these documents strongly influence new ISO documents on quality management in medical laboratories. The section of the German Working Group's paper on organizational prerequisites for the establishment of POCT in a hospital could particularly benefit from these references.