Norway's Noklus Model: 25 Years of Harmonizing Point-of-Care Testing Quality
Noklus, a Norwegian non-profit, has spent 25 years improving point-of-care testing quality across 3,100+ primary healthcare participants using EQA programs, manufacturer-independent instrument evaluations, site visits, and over 400 annual training courses. The organization's comprehensive approach covers the entire testing process from pre-examination to post-examination phases. This model demonstrates how systematic quality improvement infrastructure can harmonize POC testing performance at national scale.
The original study
Harmonization activities of Noklus - a quality improvement organization for point-of-care laboratory examinations.
- Authors
- Stavelin A, Sandberg S
- Journal
- Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine
- Type
- Journal Article, Review
- PMID
- 29768244
Original abstract
Noklus is a non-profit quality improvement organization that focuses to improve all elements in the total testing process. The aim is to ensure that all medical laboratory examinations are ordered, performed and interpreted correctly and in accordance with the patients' needs for investigation, treatment and follow-up. For 25 years, Noklus has focused on point-of-care (POC) testing in primary healthcare laboratories and has more than 3100 voluntary participants. The Noklus quality system uses different tools to obtain harmonization and improvement: (1) external quality assessment for the pre-examination, examination and postexamination phase to monitor the harmonization process and to identify areas that need improvement and harmonization, (2) manufacturer-independent evaluations of the analytical quality and user-friendliness of POC instruments and (3) close interactions and follow-up of the participants through site visits, courses, training and guidance. Noklus also recommends which tests that should be performed in the different facilities like general practitioner offices, nursing homes, home care, etc. About 400 courses with more than 6000 delegates are organized annually. In 2017, more than 21,000 e-learning programs were completed.