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specimen labels


lyn

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Although the ANZSBT discourages the use of printed stickers they have recently become "standard" in our workplace. I always thought that the point of having 3 "unique" patient identifiers (name, DOB, mrn) was so that mismatches could be identified. if they are all one the one sticker they are no longer independent and we loose the ability to cross check information , it is all dependent on the collector who puts the sticker on. what do others think of this?

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In my opinion, "unique" does not equal "independent".  We used to require handwritten blood bank tubes but switched to allow computer generated specimen labels.  The impetus for this change was the acquisition of hand-held phlebotomy scanners which printed the labels at the bedside after scanning the patient's wristband, however we had surgery personnel begging us to allow pre-printed labels for years because they cannot generally access the patient's wristband once the procedure has started and they often misspelled, copied, and omitted information.  Additionally, some people's handwriting is atrocious!  We have so many fewer headaches now that we made this change!

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Back in the olden days when I worked in a hospital transfusion service, we allowed pre-printed labels, but the date and time of collection and ID of collector needed to be hand written.  One of the unfortunate issues with computer generated labels is the amount of real estate allowed for patient names.  With some names, especially hyphenated names, either the last name or the first name gets truncated and that can be an ID problem.

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If we can't scan the patient's bracelet to ID them (along with the standard ID of tell me your name and birthday, plus looking at the band for same + medical record #), we require a hand labeled tube. If there is a barcoded armband that can be scanned to print the label at bedside, then we label with a printed label. Unfortunately, our outpatients, our infusion center patients and some of our emergency room patients have to be hand labeled.

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In uk we follow strictly zero tolerance policy therfore no pre printed label allowed.   There are chances where patient could be misidentified and labelled wrongly. 

Recently we had near miss incident.  Patient came to A&E and G/S was performed and Group was O pos. Then Patient transfer to ward and clever nurse decided to take two sample same time  eventhough two sample policy (2 sample at 2 different time and by 2 different phlebotomy ). She decided to send one sample and thought will send  second sample after one hour. Lab performed group and this time it was Bpos. So lab asked for second sample and nurse send same sample(taken same timewith first sample ) for second time. So second sample again B pos. As per our protocols we two sample has same group we can accept the group. Luckily patient was sure about his group and question about it. Fourth sample taken and found to be O Pos. Case was investigated by TP and found there was WBIT from ward nurse.  

SO no matter what policy, system or rule we bring mistakes are still happening. It's really depends on person who takes blood. They need to be visulant.

 

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All of our outpatients are banded, even for routine testing per lab protocol, with the exception of our satellite lab at the cancer center across the street.  If the patient is often anemic, however, they will band them as well and we have that positive ID trace.  Yes, banding patients is no guarantee that accidents will occur, but I would not want to go back to handwritten tubes.  The number of redraws due to manual errors was much greater and it didn't stop the nurses from labeling at the nurses station, before or after collection, or copying the wrong patient's info from the wrong paperwork left in the room.

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21 minutes ago, BankerGirl said:

Yes, banding patients is no guarantee that accidents will occur.

What?  I hope you mean, "Yes, banding patients is no guarantee that accidents will NOT occur."!!!!!!!!

Personally, I look forward to the day when all humans have a chip inserted at birth - with their entire genotype on it, but I may well not be around when this happens.  Either that, or I may be King of the World Ma, King of the World!

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