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HbA1c Point of Care testing: is it good enough for clinical practice? - Erna Lenters-Westra

Value in clinical practice: HbA1c Point of Care Testing (POCT) for better diabetes care

The ever-increasing global burden of diabetes – and the fact that up to 50% of patients remain undiagnosed1 – present a significant problem. One that creates a huge demand for robust and accurate diagnostic methods to aid in timely diagnosis, earlier treatment interventions and consequently better patient outcomes.   

Dr. Erna Lenters-Westra, renowned glycated haemoglobin expert, gives her insight into HbA1c POCT. She reveals results of her research and shares valuable knowledge about HbA1c testing and which factors are important for ensuring a high-quality standard.

One main barrier to HbA1c POCT implementation was the global variations in platforms and instruments, as well as guidelines, methods, and standards. But over time, IFCC and NGSP worked to drive standardisation of HbA1c reporting and traceability, enabling HbA1c to become a valuable and standardised tool to clinicians at the point of care.  

Dr. Erna Lenters-Westra stresses the importance of External Quality Assessments (EQA) to ensure high quality testing. Tune in to discover an example of a quality framework – used with success in Norway – that Dr. Lenters-Westra believes to be essential to establishing best practice POCT. Hear why EQA data is considered the ‘holy grail’ for assessing instruments and find out why analytical performance is not the only factor to consider when looking to bring value to patient care. 

We hope you enjoy this insightful and informative webinar.

References:

  1. IDF Diabetes Atlas. (2019). Ninth edition.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this webinar are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Roche or any other sponsors.

Biography

Dr. Erna Lenters-Westra is devoted to her research in the field of glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) for the Clinical Chemistry Department at Isala (Zwolle, the Netherlands). Isala partners with Queen Beatrix Hospital (Winterswijk, the Netherlands) and together they form the European Reference Laboratory for Glycohaemoglobin (ERL). She is amongst other things, responsible for creating the IFCC secondary reference materials which are the foundation for the global standardization of HbA1c. She has been involved in HbA1c standardization since 1995 and was a consultant for the IFCC Task Force on implementation of HbA1c standardization. She also functions as an HbA1c consultant for most of the major diagnostic manufacturers and the  IFCC Committee on the Education in the Use of Biomarkers in Diabetes (C-EUBD). She has published many times in recent years – some of her publications include extensive evaluations of Point-of-Care (POC) testing devices for acceptability in monitoring HbA1c and diagnosis of diabetes, investigation of biological variation as well as statistical models to properly evaluate quality targets for HbA1c instrumentation.

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In this webinar, Dr. Melchior Nierman will discuss the current practices in managing patients on different anticoagulation medications in different setups from hospital to patients’ homes:

  • Current advances, landscape & developments in anticoagulation 
  • Patient journey and trends in terms of needs 
  • Long term therapy with VKAs (initiation, maintenance, digital tools) 
  • Possible settings of anticoagulation management including anticoagulation clinic and PST/PSM
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