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Rapid advancements in infectious disease diagnostics continue with novel identification methods and healthcare accessibility improvements. The shift from traditional testing to a more technologically empowered, consumer-centric testing encompasses the sample-in-answer-out approach of diagnostic testing that generates results in minutes or hours. Nucleic acid amplification technologies meeting the criteria for point of care or designated as moderately complex tests to detect single or multiple pathogens have transformed the requirements for test sensitivity, specificity, and turnaround time.

A personalized medicine and treatment program that establishes clinical treatment plans for infectious diseases on a patient-by-patient basis is a hot topic of discussion in clinical microbiology and virology. Molecular diagnostic technologies, such as polymerase chain reaction and other nucleic acid-based amplification technologies, gradually replace or improve traditional laboratory techniques for pathogen identification through point-of-care tests. The driving force enabling this shift stems from the ability of point-of-care tests to detect microorganisms indicating possible poly-microbial infection.