RAPID LABORATORY TESTING OF DIABETES MELLITUS IN PRIMARY MEDICAL CARE
Keywords:
rapid laboratory tests, primary medical care, diabetes mellitusAbstract
The effectiveness of healthcare is undoubtedly enhanced by filtering out patients' health problems. Demographic changes in the population are leading to an increase in the number of people with chronic diseases. The activity of general practitioners (GPs) with the chronically ill is of particular importance, as many people during a certain period of their lives have diseases that are chronic and last until the end of their lives. About 70% of the people suffer from one or more chronic diseases. In these patients, GPs perform activities of different types and nature, which are mainly aimed at reducing the likelihood of complications. Life expectancy increases, which increases the likelihood of diabetes, coronary and cerebrovascular disease, kidney damage, and cancer. Over the past century, medical care has gone beyond home care to hospital care. This also happens with laboratory tests. The ability to return testing close to the patient, so-called point of care testing (POC), is practiced because of advanced technology that already produces smaller devices suitable for use outside the laboratory. Technological advances have made laboratory testing possible in proximity of the patient. Rapid tests are used in diagnosing and monitoring treatment in outpatient settings, mainly in diabetes, regulation of anticoagulant therapy, detection of deep vein thrombosis, acute myocardial infarction, ischemic heart disease and others. Diabetes can be associated with serious complications such as cardiovascular disease, blindness, amputation, kidney failure and can lead to premature death. The long-term health effects of patients with diabetes can be drastically improved by careful monitoring and control of blood glucose levels. Thus, the key to controlling diabetes is often self-monitoring of the patient's glucose levels. A survey was conducted among 285 general practitioners from different settlements in Bulgaria regarding their workload and the need for laboratory tests. The blood sugar of 100 patients as instructed by their GP was examined using a POC test and a conventional method. When comparing the glucose values measured by the POC test and the conventional method, it was found out that there is no significant difference between the measures obtained by the two methods. The results show that home blood sugar testing is an effective method of self-monitoring. Blood glucose self-monitoring can be used only when patients and their relatives have the necessary knowledge and when there is additional control by a healthcare professional. Express diagnostics will facilitate the decentralization of medical care. The proximity of laboratory tests to the patient provides new opportunities in medical observation, where patients will be motivated to take care of their own health.
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