While finger-stick point-of-care technology has the potential to revolutionise the testing field and undoubtedly provides an optimal testing pathway for patients – e.g., minimal pain burden compared to venepuncture testing as well as elicits a timely, accurate diagnosis – the widespread use of such testing advancements will be futile if not understood, widely accepted, and incorporated into clinical care by trained operators. An increased understanding of operator (clinic staff) perceptions of finger-stick point-of-care technology and perceptions of acceptability within clinical practice is thus critical to inform operator training and education (e.g., identify areas of misinformation) as well as appropriate indicators for monitoring and evaluation (e.g., number of valid tests performed by newly trained operators) towards the scale-up and integration of point-of-care testing for hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection across Australia.

This social science study will apply an innovative sampling strategy to investigate the successes/challenges of point-of-care testing among trained operators who have: A) performed well post-training (<5% invalid/error test results); B) started with challenges in achieving valid results but then performed well (>5% invalid/error results to <5% invalid/error test results); or C) started with challenges in achieving valid results and continue to have challenges in achieving valid results (continue to have >5% invalid/error results over time). Study findings will provide insight into how training can be improved upon to better facilitate the integration and scale-up of point-of-care testing among operators.