A national "center-without-walls" for rapid transformation of emerging point-of-care technologies into commercially viable, clinically focused solutions for improving primary health care

As the number of primary care providers diminishes and the need for primary care increases, there is an urgent need to increase the capacity of providers to care for more patients without a decrease in the quality of care and without unduly burdening the providers. 

Funded in 2012 for a five-year period by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Point-of-Care Technologies Research Netword (POCTRN), CIMIT is creating a national “center-without-walls” for rapid transformation of emerging point-of-care (POC) technologies into commercially viable, clinically focused solutions for improving primary health care.

Specific Aims of center

The specific aims of the Point-of-Care Technology Research Network (POCTRN) Center in Primary Care are to:

1. Apply CIMIT’s innovation model to create clinically-driven point-of-care solutions that address critical areas of unmet need in primary health care.
2. Identify and assess unmet primary care needs and develop performance criteria where point-of-care technology solutions would have the highest impact.
3. Select the most promising point-of-care technologies and develop them into proof-of-concept prototypes.
4. Test and evaluate prototype performance in simulated clinical environments and clinical “living laboratories” relative to clinical performance and implementation criteria.
5. Transition prototypes that meet performance specifications into commercially licensable or start-up company opportunities.
6. Train and educate relevant stakeholders in the innovation process as it applies to meeting health care needs.
7. Disseminate “lessons learned” and best practices in innovation methodology and process both nationally and internationally in collaboration with other POCTRN Centers.

Define and Prioritize Unmet Clinical Needs Annually

In general, two POC technology-enabled pathways to increase primary care capacity are:

• To introduce point-of-care technologies eliminating unnecessary steps and re-work to increase the efficiency of operations.
• To offload selected testing and self-monitoring capabilities to the home setting for patient self-management. 

On an annual basis, in collaboration with the MGH Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation, under the leadership of Susan Edgman-Levitan, unmet clinical needs in primary care where technology-enabled solutions could be of benefit will be defined and prioritized. In 2013, the highest clinical priorities for point-of-care technologies to address unmet needs in primary care are:

• Clinical laboratory testing: in particular complete blood count (including WBC with differential; electrolytes (potassium of highest priority); lipid panel (cholesterol, LDL); renal function panel (BUN, creatinine, microalbumin); diabetes screening panel (HbA1c of highest priority; includes renal function panel).
• Infectious disease: Rapid differentiation between viral and bacterial infections and if bacterial, segmentation into either gram positive or gram negative bacteria.
• Anticoagulation testing: INR/PT

ANNUAL POCTRN in Primary Care awards

Once the needs are defined, a national award competition for academic engineering R&D labs will be conducted with 4-6 awardees per year. We encourage collaboration with CIMIT consortium community investigators.