In-Clinic POCT: Choosing Capacity, Menu and Workflow Before You Buy

Quick Answer — The right analyzer is the one sized to your peak day and your decision-changing tests, not to the full catalogue. Most clinics over-buy menu and under-plan workflow: they acquire a broad panel, run three assays habitually, and let the rest expire. A defensible buying decision starts from three numbers — tests per day at peak, how many of those change a same-visit decision, and what those tests currently cost as send-outs.

Quick Answer

Capacity is a throughput question. Menu is a decision question. Workflow is a staffing question. Confusing the three is how clinics end up with an expensive instrument and a drawer of expired cartridges.

Sizing: three numbers before any conversation about models

Number	How to get it	Why it matters
Peak-day tests	Highest single day in the last 90 days, plus 30% growth headroom	Single-channel devices queue badly on peak days
Decision-changing share	Fraction of those tests that alter treatment, isolation or discharge today	Determines whether the testing earns its place
Current send-out cost per test	Your own invoices, including courier and delay	The comparison baseline that any ROI discussion must use

Data pending. This section reports measured values from internal validation studies. They are published once the supporting study is complete; the current report is available from technical support on request.

A practical rule: if peak-day volume exceeds the single-channel device’s capacity for even two hours, the queue becomes a clinical risk during the exact period when testing matters most. Two smaller units in parallel is sometimes better than one larger unit — a judgement that depends on physical space and staffing more than on price.

Menu: which assays earn a slot

Group assays by what the result changes, not by what the catalogue offers.

Decision changed	Assays that qualify
Immediate isolation or treatment	Parvovirus antigen, feline panleukopenia antigen, FeLV antigen
Today’s breeding decision	Progesterone (serial), relaxin
Today’s treatment intensity	CRP, SAA, cPL, fPL
Today’s triage of dyspnoea	NT-proBNP
Today’s renal assessment	SDMA, creatinine-based panel
Tomorrow’s plan only	Most serology, most screening panels

If an assay sits in the last row, it is a legitimate test but a weak justification for in-clinic capacity: the result can wait for a send-out without changing today.

Workflow: the part that decides whether the instrument is used

1. Assign an owner. One named person responsible for QC, reagent stock and training. Shared ownership means no ownership.
2. Define two testing windows. A morning batch for hospitalised patients and a STAT pathway for emergencies; ad-hoc testing throughout the day drives staffing chaos.
3. Put the analyzer where the samples are taken. Distance from the treatment area is the most reliable predictor of underuse.
4. Write the result into the record automatically where possible. A result that must be transcribed twice gets transcribed once.
5. Fix the QC rhythm before the first patient. Daily control at start of testing, plus after any lot change; the failure mode is a clinic that runs controls only when something looks wrong.
6. Review menu usage at 30 and 90 days. Retire assays with no use and add ones the case mix actually demands.

Cost: the number clinics get wrong

Cost per test is not the cartridge price. It is cartridge + control material amortised over runs + staff time + analyzer depreciation + the consumables the workflow requires (pipettes, tips, timers).

The comparison that matters is against the fully loaded send-out cost, including the clinical cost of waiting: an extra day of hospitalisation, a delayed discharge, or a second visit.

The five common mistakes

1. Buying the full menu and using three assays.
2. Sizing to average volume and queueing badly on Mondays.
3. No named owner for QC and stock.
4. Placing the analyzer away from the treatment area.
5. Comparing cartridge price with send-out price while ignoring the delay saving.

The Author’s Take

Position. The purchase decision should be framed as a workflow decision with a financial consequence, not as an equipment purchase with a test menu attached.

Reasoning. Clinics that regret an in-clinic analyzer almost never regret the assay performance; they regret the placement, the missing QC owner, or a menu that did not match their case mix. Those are all predictable in advance with three numbers and one afternoon of honest workflow review. A vendor that asks for peak-day volume, decision-changing share and send-out cost before quoting a model will close fewer deals quickly and more deals durably — and will spend far less on support calls in year two, because the clinic that sized correctly uses the instrument and the clinic that bought optimistically lets it sit.

Disclosure. This page is operational guidance, not a performance claim. Economic figures are illustrative frameworks; markers indicate where platform-specific throughput, pricing and cost models must be inserted.

Sources

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