Fasting labs?

lradley · Feb 25, 2013

What does your agency/you do re: fasting labs? What time frame do you try to get to home? Does the on call nurse go out early? Do you have to start early? Our new boss is wanitng to change work start time to 0700 every morning for everyone because of this. I dont agree b/c there are not fasting labs every day![/quote']
We don't have a lot of fasting labs. You might want to clarify with the provider if the requested labs really have to be fasting. Most of our patients are geriatrics and I find that the physicians are very understanding with the blood work, most do not order fasting.

paradiseboundRN · Feb 25, 2013

Fasting labs are very rare in homecare. Most patients do not want to see their nurse at 7am and won't agree to a visit that early.

KittyLovinRN · Feb 26, 2013

Our worst lab day is always Monday, I work with a lot of transplant patients who have to hold their immunosuppression medications until we draw their labs. Our agency has held strong in insisting that the nurses work 8am-430pm and patients must work with us. Generally every Monday I have three transplant labs to obtain by 10am. Some patients opt to go to the hospital rather than wait for us but most are very accommodating because they would rather we come to them than they get up even earlier for a lab appointment. I think you should say something to your agency/supervisor. Patients need to be flexible especially when (at least in PA) labwork isn't a skilled need and more of a convenience service we provide during the certification period.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Feb 26, 2013

I don't have any patients (currently) that require fasting labs. The majority of labs that I get are either pre-chemo or monitoring counts post-chemo. As KittyLovinRN says, I insist that my patients work with me. I am full-time with my agency while most of the other field nurses are per diem. In my experience, if you let patients walk all over you, they will. I recently took over a case from another nurse- this other nurse was having problems with the family because they were "insisting" on late/after-hours/evening visits and the problem was- he was obliging them so they didn't realize it was an issue. When he gave up the case, I simply called the clinic who manages the child's treatment and said "the family needs to be available in this time range or they need to go to the clinic every week and they will not get home nursing." Once people hear this, all of a sudden, being available at the time the nurse is isn't a problem anymore.

For people who do need fasting labs and have a nurse coming to their home to do this- this is a benefit they get. Other wise they'd be waking up at the crack of dawn, driving to a lab and taking a number. I don't really see how it's that hard just to not eat breakfast until after the nurse comes.

LaRN · Mar 2, 2013

I don't really see how it's that hard just to not eat breakfast until after the nurse comes.

agreed! what is really irritating is when you have to show up at a pts house extra early, causing you to rearrange your whole route and when you go back the next week at 11 a.m. and they JUst woke up and haven't had breakfast yet........why couldn't they do that last week ????