At-home testing: Why?

Access to quality healthcare can profoundly impact a person’s overall health.

Traditionally, healthcare systems operate in a reactive manner, creating a care plan for a patient after unusual symptoms have been noticed. We all know the drill – initial appointment, collection of samples, said samples being sent to the lab, and then the wait until your healthcare professional can diagnose. Waiting days, and sometimes weeks for a diagnosis can be potentially life-threatening for patients who need immediate medical intervention, not to mention those who haven’t experienced symptoms at all. Issues associated with this reactive healthcare style are worsened by limited resources and social determinants which act as barriers to equitable healthcare access. 

In the past few years, there have been drastic changes in the way that people engage with their health. The COVID-19 global pandemic highlighted the need for accessible care, putting self-administered microsampling tools at the top of the list as attractive alternatives to maintain routine healthcare assessments. These changing patient preferences allow for a more active system that empowers patients to be more involved in their health status, moving healthcare towards a more personalized model.

Finger-stick blood collection is easily performed at home or remotely, removing the need for a trained professional. It is how a sample is processed and stored prior to arriving at the laboratory which requires more innovation. The good news – that’s an element you don’t have to worry about. The past decade has seen substantial innovation for the development of new materials and technologies to collect low-volume samples of blood for the type of at-home testing required.

The convenience of this at-home diagnostic testing allows patients to seek treatment earlier, improving clinical outcomes and decreasing chances of complications. Removing many of the historical barriers associated with healthcare, at-home testing and microsampling allows for more prevention-focused care, further driving improved population health outcomes.

For more information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10013775/