Point of Care Diagnostics
The role of diagnostics tools in the healthcare system will undergo a significant change. Diagnostic testing has the potential to improve the quality of healthcare provided and to reduce healthcare costs through shorter hospital visits and ensuring treatment is relevant and more cost-effective. Nano technology based solutions will enable more tests to be carried out at the point-of-care, enabling physicians to determine the appropriate treatment rapidly without having to wait for results of laboratory analyses.
The current healthcare system is primarily focused on disease treatment rather than prevention. In general, patients are not tested until clinical symptoms develop and are present and they meet with their GP. Laboratory tests can often take 2-3 days and can be inconclusive if the disease is at an early stage. As a consequence, many diseases are not diagnosed until it is too late for effective treatment. Nano technology based solutions will enable more sensitive and accurate diagnostic test platforms to be developed. These emerging nanotechnologies will create a shift to preventive medicine and the use of point-of-care diagnostics to quickly identify diseases close to the patient, and at the time that care is required. Handheld and portable diagnostic kits will become available to test whether individuals are genetically predisposed to a specific disease, or have the earliest indications of a disease.
We are commercializing point-of-care medical diagnostic solutions to quickly identify diseases. These devices will give fast, accurate and reliable results to help healthcare experts take the right decisions to achieve the optimum patient outcomes. These devices will detect whether there are particular molecules associated with certain diseases, and then provide instant feedback to the doctor or patient via telemedicine applications using a mobile phone.