Specimen Labeling Requirements

[David Thomas]

Recently we have had several discussions with nurses regarding acceptable specimen labeling requirements. They have sent us specimens for blood bank with the top quarter or so of the name chopped off, the label printer must have been misaligned. The names are really pretty much readable and there is no problem reading the medical record number. Other departments routinely accept these specimens but up until now blood bank has been able to reject them. But now lab admininstration is being pressued into accepting these specs. We require two independent identifiers, name and MR #. What are thoughts on this, do other institutions accept labels with top part of name chopped off?

[Lcsmrz]

We occasionally get a sample label with the first character of the last name omitted, but all other informaton is readable. Fortunately, there is an abundance of other information on the label to affirm the patient's identity, and we call the unit manager to fix the printer immediately.

We're switching soon to a bedside scanner to confirm all specimen labels. I'd like to have the ones that print a bedside label only after scanning the patient wristband, but they're very expensive.