Bloodwork question

[JennyMac]

In your hospital, who draws blood for labs? Do you have phlebotomists? Or do the nurses or PCTs/aides do it?

[cardiacmadeline, RN]

We have phlebotomists that draw the labs. But if the patient has a PICC, the nurses do the PICC draw.

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

I'm not sure this is hospital wide, but on my unit, the RNs do...we don't use techs.

[qt2168]

In the critical care areas the nurses do it. On the floor the lab does.

[NurseKitten, MSN, RN]

In the ICU's, RN's and nurse externs can do venipunctures. On the floors, nurse specialty techs, nurse externs and nurses do it. All PICC and central lines on the floors are done by IVT, or if they're busy, the floors call a nurse from their "sister" ICU to come access the central line.

[maelstrom143]

In our facility it varies: in the ER, Nurse Techs & nurses can draw blood from venipunctures; only nurses draw from PICCs, portacaths, etc. In M/S, PCU, ICU, lab draws.

[nursecurlyq]

At our hospital, labs draws everything except for central lines (PICCS, PORTS, IJ, EJ etc) which is done by the RN only

[chicookie, BSN, RN]

The RN does it. Some CNA are sometimes allowed to do it.

[KateRN1]

When I worked on a cardiac step-down/tele floor, the nurses did all their own draws. When you have pts on a heparin gtt requiring q 6hr levels, plus cardiac enzymes, plus whatever miscellaneous labs get thrown in for good measure, it's easier for the RN to make the judgment call about when to draw to prevent the pt from being stuck multiple times. I loved it, even though it was an extra task in an already task-heavy day, I knew when my labs were drawn, what they were, and when they'd be resulted. Beats the heck out of waiting for a phlebotomist to show up, who has far more bloods to draw than I did!

[RheatherN, ASN, RN, EMT-P]

regular stick then its phleb's, line draws of anythings- RN's

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

We only use central lines, so nurses do all the draws. On the once in a blue moon occasions we'll have someone without a central line, the nurse will just do that draw too, as it makes no sense to have phlebotomy come up for one patient. Occasionally if we have a very hard stick or the patient requests it, we will have phlebotomy to it, but that's rare.

[SaraO'Hara]

Lab comes up from the acute hospital to do our draws in the wee hours; if there's a patient with a PICC, the DON draws the labs and whoever's available will run them the 4 blocks to the hospital. If a doctor orders stat labs, often the hospital can't send anybody, so I or one of the other IV-certified LVNs will draw.