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Lab assistants helping in Blood Bank


roberman

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We have a new position in our lab - technical lab assistant. I have been asked to come up with some ideas of what this person could do to help. Suggestions have been; issuing products, receiving products and entering them into Meditech, thawing FFP and cryo.

Does anyone have experience with this? What has worked and what hasn't.

We may also be hiring an MLT. So feel free to figure that into the equation.

Thanks for any help.

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We allow MLTs to do virtually anything a CLS can do. We do require a CLS to check a MLT's antibody workup, however. We only have used assistants in BB to help with paperwork. We do not allow them to do any testing, including issuing of blood or thawing of plasma.

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We have used lab assistance for the past 10 years and the help is amazing! We currently employee 10 of them and they perform inventory control, daily equipment maintenance, issue and pack blood. Pretty much all activities not related to actual testing and interpretation. I'll be happy to share a job description with you if youre interested. Drop me a line, dwebber@carterbloodcare.org

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We have used lab assistance for the past 10 years and the help is amazing! They perform inventory control, daily equipment maintenance, issue and pack blood. Pretty much all activities not related to actual testing and interpretation.

Same here. Our lab assistant also delivers blood to the nursing units, surgery, emergency dept., etc. She answers the phone, calls our blood orders into our blood supplier, accessions/organizes the work as it comes into Blood Bank. She's terrific! Sometimes she understands what is going on better than our staff techs!

Regarding MLTs: We train our MLTs to do everything that our CLSs do, with the exception that the MLTs do not teach our CLS students. Some of our MLTs need a little help or advice with difficult antibody problems, but so do some of our CLSs.

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Just a thought, isn't this kind "putting the cart before the horse". Before inventing a new job I would think that the powers-that-be would have identified the need for the postition by identifying the tasks that could be done by some one with a lower education and training level.

I worked with MLTs in my blood bank for years and found them as good for routine bench work as the MLSs. Their only restrictions were the possibility for advancement. As far as lab assistants, if we had had them then we would have lost the MLTs and MLSs because we would not have had the work load for everyone. Remember you can always have more qualified people doing less technical tasks to keep busy but you really can not or should not go the other way.

:faint:

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I understand what you are saying, John.

However, our current concern is not about losing MLTs and MLSs from our staff. Our current problem is not being able to find/recruit MLTs and MLSs to do all the work that needs to be done. So at this point of time it makes perfect sense to hire and train less expensive personnel to do as much of the non-technical chores as possible and leave the technical duties and professional chores to our shrinking MLT and MLS staff.

Donna

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The lab assistant will mainly have tasks in chemistry and with lab inventory, etc., but I may be able to snag her for some BB jobs. Since we are in California, MLTs are pretty limited in BB, so the CLSs will continue to do the bench work. CLS shortages in CA, our aging staff and our rural location make it hard to keep a strictly CLS staff these days. Thanks for your comments.

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For a technical assistant: answer the phone, sign out blood, thaw products, take temps, discard samples, maintain blood and reagent inventory (with assistance if needed), any kind of housekeeping, stock supplies, any filing if you are still use any paper.

Don't discount the MLT's, they are as technically capable as a CLS. Remember it's not the letters behind the name that make a good tech it's what's in their head and their heart.

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I have worked in 6 different places and my current Hospital is the only place I have worked at that did NOT have a Lab Assistant! And I am working to change that. If you get an intelligent person with a good work ethic (and there are plenty out there; with or without college degrees) they can do the following: Process Orders and Specimens (whatever all your protocol requires for that); Issue blood products; assign non-Red Cell products to patient; Thaw FFP (physically and in computer); Thaw and Pool Cryoprecipitate; prepare pediatric RBC aliquots; Freeze; Wash and Deglyc (if you perform any of those); Answer the phone (turn over any technical questions and/or questions they do not know the answer to, to a Med Tech); Take Daily Temps; Order Blood Inventory from Supplier; change temperature charts weekly if your Institution still uses them; Receipt of Blood Products into computer system; print out any daily reports you might need; perform paper audits of various systems if you have anything you audit (i.e. maybe forms coming back from OR; etc); pack coolers if you use them (and take them to ER if you are a trauma center and respond in that way); and probably other things I have left out. A good Lab Assistant is worth their weight in gold!

Brenda Hutson

p.s. in case anyone wonders why I write my responses in blue, it is not so I stand out (and with some of my responses, the last thing I want to do is stand out....); rather it is because I am a very color oriented person....I can't help it!

We have a new position in our lab - technical lab assistant. I have been asked to come up with some ideas of what this person could do to help. Suggestions have been; issuing products, receiving products and entering them into Meditech, thawing FFP and cryo.

Does anyone have experience with this? What has worked and what hasn't.

We may also be hiring an MLT. So feel free to figure that into the equation.

Thanks for any help.

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When we had a Lab Assistant, she did all that Brenda lists, plus order supply inventory and stock it when it came in, perform alarm QC on the freezer and defrost it, call for transfusion confirmations (a whole other story, very time consuming), clean waterbaths, etc. Basically anything non-technical. She did not do retypes, but she did enter units in the computer and do label checks. She was wonderful. The reason I did not replace her when she left was that my staff got reduced (yet again) and I needed more flexibility in scheduling, so the position that went away was hers and not a tech.

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hi to evry body

actually the lab assistants , they are unlicensed, or with diploma , and they can do recieving , regestration , answering the phone , daily blood inventory , statistics and centrifugation the sample .

they are not allowed to do any technical work because they are unlincensed.

Thank You

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