Leaderboard

I would say have compassion and flexibility, but don't let people walk all over you. Don't be afraid to ask for what you need, like 5 minutes to finish a task before addressing their issue. If people are complaining, I will often ask them to come up with a solution. I definitely agree that stepping into a leadership position internally is more difficult than starting as a leader in a new facility. One of the most helpful things that I was told early in my career was to vent up, personnel management can be frustrating, but go vent to a supervisor or manager away from the lab, this can often help bring perspective to the situation. Good luck!

I've been searching for the powerpoint I made of the occurrence I wanted to share but I must have stored it on an external hard drive that crashed and was unrecoverable. (That's my excuse anyway.) Consequently it was long ago and my memory is fuzzy on the details but in this case the details is not the point I'm attempting to convey. Bottom line was that 2 units of blood were sent via pneumatic tube to ICU for 2 different patients. No, the units were not in the same tube, they were sent 10-15 minutes apart. The units went to the wrong patients and the proper patient identification protocol was not followed. Both units were transfused and the paper work was sent back to the transfusion service. I do remember a very white faced staff member coming to my door to tell me what they had discovered. Luckily both patients were type O+ with no problems and recrossmatching showed that each was compatible with the unit they had received. We had dodged a bullet! The ensuing investigation discovered that the patient identification protocol used by the ICU nursing staff had morphed into something I did not even recognize. A couple of years earlier the nursing department had taken over all training of new nurses as well as annual reviews for current staff. They basically told me my services were no longer needed in a training capacity. When the details of the occurrence came out the assistant CNO (chief nursing officer) who was filling in for the CNO on sick leave wanted to severely punish the two nurses involved and then sweep everything under the rug. Heaven forbid that word got out that a couple of HER nurses had made a mistake. Much to my surprise and delight I was able to convince the ICU nurse supervisor that the problem was much deeper than just human error and the protocols the nurses were following were deeply flawed. We did extensive retraining for the entire ICU staff. When the CNO returned to duty I had a long talk with her. I had always had a very good relationship with her and she trusted me. From that point on I was actively involved in the training a new nurses as well as the annual refresher courses for current staff. During those training sessions I was not surprised that other areas had "adjusted" the pretransfusion patient identification protocols to be easier and quicker for them. Using this occurrence as an example I was able to convince them of just how critical patient identification was. As a side note, I one time had a labor and delivery nurse tell me that it was impossible for her to transfuse the wrong blood to her patient and nothing I could say would convince her otherwise. Some times I wonder how I ever got out with my sanity intact! My wife (a nurse) reminds me that I didn't!

Several years ago we had a call from the OR asking if there was any history on a patient X to determine if one collection or two separate collections were required. The BB tech who answered the call did a history search and said we have no BB history on patient X. Ten minutes later two samples for a patient Y arrived. The same BB tech called the OR to clarify why samples on patient Y were delivered when we were expecting patient X. The OR said patient X samples had been delivered. Not said the BB tech; and demanded two recollections by different people. What had happened was patient X was moved to a different OR and whoever collected the samples used the labels in the new OR, patient Y (the labels for patient X were in the old OR). As whoever drew the samples recorded them as different collections; they were written up with two Wrong Blood in Tube events, which resulted in their termination. We typed the incorrect samples from curiosity and an O+ patient would have received A+ blood!!!!!!