HiThisIsStatLabCLICK

Hehehe. The irony here is that lab techs of today (raises hand) don't even know how to draw blood as its no longer part of our curriculum. The old geezers, which describes approximately 98.9% of the laboratory population do though, but heck, they haven't drawn blood in years.

There are two seperate occasions when we can catch hemolysis. Once the specimen is taken out of the centrifuge we see that its hemolyzed, thus it won't be run, and we'll make the call for a restick. Or we miss it and it gets ran anyway, but the results come out funky where potassium is 6.9 after the patient had been running a 4.0, creatinine levels are all out of whack etc etc. When we see something like this, we go back to the instrument, recheck the racks and see whats wrong with the specimen. More often than not its hemolyzed or diluted (another problem caused by drawing from the line). So then thats when we make the call. Sometimes, results from a hemolyzed specimen will still correlate with what the patient has been running. In that case, we file it, why restick the patient? When the lab calls about hemolyzed specimens and they call fairly quick, that means they caught the hemolysis after spinning it down. If it took some time for them to call, they probably have results but just aren't willing to file it because they caught the hemolysis after the fact. Thats why when we call and you sweet talk us a little bit, bribe us with a late night rendezvous in the morgue, your results magically appear like manna from heaven.

Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I don't see what happens in the ER and I don't know how they draw the blood there. All I really know is that once we finish spinning it down in the centrifuge, its hemolyzed. Its pretty much a blame game, the ER thinks that we're the ones hemolyzing the specimen, but the only time it can happen is during the draw. The specimens that we recieve from our phlebotomists' rounds are fine, so it has to be the way the blood is being drawn, and from my understanding they almost always take it from the lines.

Okay, now that I've gotten your attention, I didn't really mean it...or did I =) First and foremost I am not a nurse, I'm a technologist in the stat lab with a whopping 1 month of experience. Now, there's been some bad blood brewing recently between the lab and the ER. The issue, hemolyzed blood specimens. For the past 4 days, it seems as if EVERY single specimen sent from the ER is hemolyzed. We call because we need a restick, the ER gets ******, we get the tubes, its still hemolyzed, we get ******, we call again, they get more ******, we get the tubes, we get more ****** etc. etc. Its gotten to the point where the clerks won't even document a hemolyzed specimen and we have to speak to the Doctor directly. I'm just curious as to why all these specimens drawn from the lines are hemolyzed. Enlighten me. P.S. Feel free to rant off about the lab and I'll try my best to shed some light upon your qualms.