Is this ever acceptable?

access port

draw 10 ml blood, in a srynge, as though to waste

draw labs

re-instill original 10 ml blood

this was not done in a closed system.

is this ever acceptable?

some policy and procedure manual somewhere may say it's okay, but i can't imagine why it would.

from the contamination standpoint, i wouldn't do it in the absence of a closed system. the risk of hemolysis isn't worth it, either.

I'll take a guess....NO?

NO.

You do not return it.

Why would you return it?

If it's not a closed system or you're not using a new stop cock each time then no...I would not return it. Too many problems

if this is the way it's to be done, then i'd skip drawing out the 10ml's in the first place.

no, not acceptable.

leslie

Absolutely not!

Good question as I recently battled my administrator in the chronic dialysis clinic (I quit not long ago). On dialysis caths when drawing labs she insisted we pull 10ml off, draw our labs, then reinstill the 10ml back to the pt. I refused!!! Her rational was dialysis pts cant afford to loose the blood, but my opinion is dialysis pts cant afford the possible hemolysis, infections potential etc. I should send this link to her LOL. ****** if your here hope you read it!! She still has this practice!!!

10mls is a bit....but if the patient is that critical that the 10mLs are going to really negatively impact their labs/blood values/etc....then really, let's not draw labs everyday....the infection/hemolysis problems soooo not worth my license.

The nurse who did this was a traveller who did it in good faith. By good faith, I mean it wasn't an issue of laziness- she could have just as easily wasted the waste. Obviously, she believed it was in the interest of the pt. She said it was common practice in some other environment.

I am just wondering where and when this might be considered acceptable. BTW- I am sceptical that a ouple teaspoons of blood matters to anybody.

The nurse who did this was a traveller who did it in good faith. By good faith, I mean it wasn't an issue of laziness- she could have just as easily wasted the waste. Obviously, she believed it was in the interest of the pt. She said it was common practice in some other environment.

I am just wondering where and when this might be considered acceptable. BTW- I am sceptical that a ouple teaspoons of blood matters to anybody.

Spoken like someone who's never worked in a NICU We never, ever waste blood.

When drawing labs from a UAC/UVC, we always give the blood back. I was horrified the first time I saw a "big people" nurse waste 10 ml of blood! Some things depend on your background. Maybe the traveler was a former peds nurse.

I have given patients back their blood, but I have done in a sterile environment and in a timely manner(within seconds of drawing) 10 cc's of blood might not be much once a day, but can add up if you are drawing ACTs every 1/2 hour for example (such as during an A Fib ablation, when a patient is heparnized for 6 hours). You would be wasting a lot of blood.