No more phlebotomist in the hospital?!

Nurses General Nursing

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The place I work for wants to get rid of all phlebotomist and make nurses do lab draws. I work on a telly floor. This means many lab draws that get ordered all ..day.. long.... K+, Mg+, Troponin, PT. Not to mention nearly everyone on the floor has daily CBC, and Chemistry.

Honestly, I am thinking about leaving. We already have too many patients, and never enough staff. Often no nurse aids, so we do everything. It's total pt care with up to 6 telemetry patients. (Most of the time I feel like I work in acute care nursing home).

Does this sound reasonable to you? We aren't getting an increase in pay for the increase in work.

I agree with the above poster, I would much rather be doing my own draws and EKGs, vitals, etc. I work in Canada so practice could be different here- we do TOTAL patient care...and literally everything lol. I even have to feed most of my patients (which takes up ALOT of time if its super busy - and I work majority of my shifts in ED) but alas we don't have techs or CNAs here we have personal support workers but not in the ED where I am. We also have to do our own baths...showers, sometimes room cleans if we have too. Yup!

We haven't had phlebotomists, EKGs techs nor RTs in some areas for a long time. Patient care has actually improved. RNs don't have to page someone, wait for them to decide to return the call and finally get to the patient when they decide they are ready. Too much wasted time trying to depend on others for simple tasks. You can do these basic tasks and get things started quickly. Ever tell someone who was having difficulty breathing that they would have wait until the RT finished lunch or their smoke break? How about the patient with chest pain and the EKG tech isn't answering their page?

Yeah, so let's not hold everyone else accountable for doing their job, because a RN can do it quicker? If you allow the hospital to have this mentality they never have to hire anyone but a nurse because we are the only ones professional enough to provide timely care? Makes no sense.

I think it's ridiculous unless you're in an ICU with a 2:1 ratio.

Yeah, so let's not hold everyone else accountable for doing their job, because a RN can do it quicker? If you allow the hospital to have this mentality they never have to hire anyone but a nurse because we are the only ones professional enough to provide timely care? Makes no sense.

Aren't you at the bedside? If a hospital does have a Phlebotomist, EKG tech or RT it might only be 1 per 300 patients. Do you really want someone with chest pain to be #10 in the line of other chest pain patients one EKG tech must see? The same for Phlebotomist and RT. Some places have 1 RT doing all three tasks in an attempt to save an RT's job.

Maybe you would like to not do anything for your patient but don't judge those of us who can and do provide for our patients while at the bedside without leaving the bedside to page and wait and wait. A lot of the patients are now line draws so you will have to draw the labs anyway.

If it is to be true total care then keep a 1 to 4 ratio not much more

I agree with the above poster, I would much rather be doing my own draws and EKGs, vitals, etc. I work in Canada so practice could be different here- we do TOTAL patient care...and literally everything lol. I even have to feed most of my patients (which takes up ALOT of time if its super busy - and I work majority of my shifts in ED) but alas we don't have techs or CNAs here we have personal support workers but not in the ED where I am. We also have to do our own baths...showers, sometimes room cleans if we have too. Yup!

I don't know where you work in Canada but it's not the norm in my health authority. Our lab is available for blood draws 24 hours a day. We have a Rapid Response Team for non code issues. The only time we have to do our own ECG's is after 1600 when all the techs go home.

They tried to get us to do our own blood work but the unions for the labs and nursing got involved and the issue quickly died.

It all comes down to money and how the administration can cut back. It's always the floor staff that is cut never the upper tiers clerical/administrative staff.

WE never do our own EKGs, they just got rid of the night shift ekg team and they trained the RT team to do them. WE have never done our own lab draws or nebs. but have always started our own IVS. personally our patients really appreciate people who specialize in venipuncture. I am tired of more and more responsibility being thrown on to me. The easy answer is the nurse can take more patients and if were cutting positions they can take that roll to...............of course they promise to offer you more support but they do that by putting more on the back of the CNAS who are already overworked and not able to keep up............its disheartening. because i see an end to bedside care for me i can take it in stride but i feel for my co-workers who had planned on doing this forever. its not a good or safe situation.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

Our hospital got rid of phlebotomy and EKG techs a long time ago. We have residents that do the EKG and the nurses do the bloods. It is just part of your care.

Our hospital got rid of phlebotomy and EKG techs a long time ago. We have residents that do the EKG and the nurses do the bloods. It is just part of your care.

As in MD residents doing them?

Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.

Wow, I work med/surg with a lower ratio (1:4/5) WITH aides & I can't even imagine being on a tele floor with no aides AND having to do your own lab draws. Many cardiac tele patients are admitted with orders for Q8/6 hr enzymes. The time you're spending drawing would really add up & take away from routine patient care. It sounds unsafe!

The other members saying this is the norm for them, what is your charting like? I can't imagine the amount of charting we are required to do with that many patients, and no aide, AND no phlebotomy. I think that is ridiculous and I'm not sure how anyone would ever be able to leave on time. I would think the amount of incidental OT would start to add up & not be much of a cost saving.

I don't know where you work in Canada but it's not the norm in my health authority. Our lab is available for blood draws 24 hours a day. We have a Rapid Response Team for non code issues. The only time we have to do our own ECG's is after 1600 when all the techs go home.

They tried to get us to do our own blood work but the unions for the labs and nursing got involved and the issue quickly died.

It all comes down to money and how the administration can cut back. It's always the floor staff that is cut never the upper tiers clerical/administrative staff.

I'm in Toronto, Ontario. We have a lab that's avaliable for blood draws as well but we have a policy in the ER we can do it ourselves. To be honest our phlebotomists will get upset with us if we keep asking them to do our lab draws so we end up doing it ourselves. I don't think the issue has ever gone in front of our union because we do it all. I'm not complaining I realize other hospitals have different policies and that's ok! Although when it's busy sometimes we appreciate the extra set of hands.

Specializes in Oncology.

We do all our own lab draws because our patients almost all have CVL's. Phlebotomy does AM labs on surgical units, not medical units like mine. Our patients are on q12h labs at a minimum. We typically only have 3 patients, though, so much different.

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