World Health Organization defines point of care testing (POCT) as testing near the point of patient care. As a public health intervention, POCT was designed to provide a laboratory

rapid response and technical support to patients in emergencies and dire need of time-bound critical care. However, the proliferation of POCT out of the medical laboratory-controlled environment is eliciting a growing concern particularly among medical laboratory scientists because it is driven by non laboratorian experts who are eager to enlarge their coast beyond their primary area of service in health care delivery, at the expense of evidence based acceptable analytical quality. This course is designed to provide participants with practical skills to effectively monitor and validate the performance of POCT devices in routine clinical settings in order to institutionalize and strengthen laboratory governance along the entire diagnostic value chain in the public and private sector.