Specimen Mislabeling- Help!

How many patients does a nurse usually have? It sounds as if you are very understaffed and everyone is hurrying. If something as basic as putting the right label on a specimen is hard to do, it worries me that many other bad things are going on that you are not aware of.

Most policies will indicate labelling labs at the bedside, or they should. I realize I may be nit picking here, but are they REALLY checking the labels with the arm band? I just noticed that you mentioned labelling at the bedside, but did not mention checking the arm band. BOTH have to be done to ensure accuracy when labelling labs, and my guess is that those who are mislabelling are not checking the labels with the arm band.

Also completing the task without interruption or stopping to "guickly do something else." Usually when mistakes like this are made, it will usually be because:

1. not following policy

2. allowing the task to be interrupted

3. trying to do too many tasks at the same time

My initial thoughts are in alignment with the other posters, in respect to the premise that your staff are probably too busy, and stretched too thin in regards to staffing. However, you must also look at other contributing factors, like do you make it convenient to create the requisite stickers before the nurse heads into the room to draw blood/start IVs? What happens when a patient arrives and the nurse immediately follows him/her into the room and is then required to draw blood/start IVs? Does someone else have the responsibility to make and deliver the required labels?

In short, you need to look at the systems issues, both during the construction period, and afterwards to eliminate those processes that create difficulties in labeling the specimines at the bedside. For example, does each nurse have their own label maker (adressograph, or whatever your facility uses)? Are labels generated by lab personnel only after the order is entered? Whatever the cause, you need to identify it then make it "easy" for the nurses to comply. All too often, the "system" is set up in such a fashion that complying with stated goals is nearly impossible. Because of this, nurses often try to "work around" the difficulty, and in doing so, make mistakes.

How simple is your labelling system? I just started at a new ED, and their labelling system is WAY more complicated than the last ED I was at. At the previous ED all specimens were labelled with the same computerized labels, and the strip of labels was always taken into the room with the patient, before blood draws to be affixed as soon as the tube was full. The new ED has several different types of labels for different types of tests, coming from different printers, with some tests needing a seperate form to complete, and I have seen nurses several times just draw the blood and hold it before picking up all their labels/paperwork from the various locations. Seems like way too much work to me...

So....long story short, how simple is your labelling system?

Have you considered that the problem may not be with the nurses? Had a similar problem where I worked before, with lab saying our CBC's were all clotting. Problems got worse and worse despite policy reviews with the nursing staff. To make a long story short, when they investigated further, it was found that lab was losing samples and mixing them up or just mixing up the lables and slips. Then to cover themselves, lab was using the excuse"The CBC clotted" or "the nurse mislabled the sample".

In the hospital here, the clerk who does the admitting paperwork, takes the info, prints out the card and a whole sheet of about 60 labels is affixed also. All the nurse, tech, ward clerk who ever had to do is take those with the chart, and stick them on. They are preprinted, so unless they mix up the whole chart with another patient, the labels are correct. PLUS check with the braclet, as it is the product of stamping the card on it, or affixing one of the stickers.

Thank you to the other posters who've inquired about the labeling SYSTEM in place. Do you really think punishing nurses is going to solve the problem? All you're doing is creating even more stress for the nurses by threatening them with punishment. That makes for a great work environment. I don't get why some managers always first assume the problem is with the nurses when usually it's the environment and the systems in place.

We just started a new computer charting system that is terrible - crashes, loses information, totally inefficient, multiple screens that take forever to come up. Anyway, our mgmt keeps hounding us about how our charting is insufficient, etc. Uh, maybe if there was a better system, you wouldn't have so many problems? Never had that problem when the SAME nurses where charting on paper. So what changed? The system! (And I have nothing against computers - I've computer charted at other hospitals with no problem.)

Sorry, I digress.

Regarding how we label specmens - when a pt is admitted or even checked in, labeled stickers are automatically generated and go into their chart. The stickers - and a blank lab order sheet - go along with the patient just like their armband does. So when the nurse has to draw blood, the stickers are already there with the pt. All the nurse has to do is put the stickers on the tube, date and initial it, fill out the lab order sheet, stick it all in a bag and off it goes to the lab.

read req., gather all tubes, label before draw....

Start making it a two person check....

Sweetooth

Most policies will indicate labelling labs at the bedside, or they should. I realize I may be nit picking here, but are they REALLY checking the labels with the arm band? I just noticed that you mentioned labelling at the bedside, but did not mention checking the arm band. BOTH have to be done to ensure accuracy when labelling labs, and my guess is that those who are mislabelling are not checking the labels with the arm band.

Also completing the task without interruption or stopping to "guickly do something else." Usually when mistakes like this are made, it will usually be because:

1. not following policy

2. allowing the task to be interrupted

3. trying to do too many tasks at the same time

Agree 100%, label at bedside and problem solved. If the labels aren't prited yet, leave blood at bedside until you have labels (which is not long in most cases)

I am the one who posted this question. Thanks to all for replying. I agree it may be a 'systems' problem, but not sure. When a pt is registered in our ER within minutes 2 pages of labels w. attached arm bands are printed, so in almost all cases we can bring labels into the room. We often draw bloods (especially in acute/trauma) before labs are actually ordered or reqs are printed. In that case, the tubes are labelled at the bedside and placed in a ziplock bag awaiting the reqs.

We have a computerized patient safety network, (PSN) so the lab enters one whenever there is an error. Many times the nurse swears they did not send an unlabelled specimen, but we have no way to prove it. The lab just calls and asks them to send another spec and req. We also have the lab calling at times and saying "you didn't send a red top" or whatever when we know we did, and then it mysteriously appears down there. If it is a case of the tube labels not matching the reqs, we can usually verify that, but not always.

Also it is not so hectic here (although occasionally of course) that one cannot take a 15 second time out to verify correct labels, and it should never be. Our staffing is usually pretty good.

And I agree (thanks) with pointing out being punitive to staff does not make it a hospitable environment to work in. Actually I think we are pretty management-friendly here, but we felt we needed to do something- we are having up to 10 per month, where we used to have 1-3/month. Its too serious a thing to not do anything.

When we are discussing w. staff when they have their 1st event, we review the process- bringing labels in, etc. - if you don't have labels or not enough, leave tubes in pts room and go out and get them, and of course double check the reqs to tubes before sending.

As I said, most staff has never had any, and also some of us question the lab techs reports. Thanks for everyone's input- these forums are great! I will keep looking into the system, but some of our nurses have 3 mislabellings- that's just careless work, and too dangerous to work in an ED....

I am sorry that you are going through this with your staff. It sounds very frustrating; however, I am sure the nurses are not intentionally leaving the labels off of the lab draws. After all, that only creates more work for the RN by having to recollect the specimen...

Sounds to me like your perspective is not from the staff nurses' perspective - not that that's a bad thing...but in this instance you should really seek out the staff nurses' advice. Pick their brains. Maybe you could even set up a "Task Force" of staff RNs to nit-pick and address this issue thoroughly. This would not only address the problem at it's root, but it would make any necessary changes more acceptable by the staff since they wouldn't be changes "forced" on them by management.

[banana]Just my $0.02.[/banana]