just wondering. I work for a 100-200 bed hospital. We have one technologist working the blood bank department. The tech however is also resposible for urinalysis and serology testing. My question is, how many hospitals out there have the issue of performing blood bank testing and testing in other areas of the lab?

Thanks for your input.

I work in a 164 bed hospital, we have 1 tech on days, 1 tech on evening assigned to blood bank, BUT is the first person who must help in other areas. Evening tech covers special chemistry approx 2-3 days /wk which includes serology. The day tech usually must do about 1/4 of the inpatient draws. For nights we have 1-2 techs covering the whole lab, if one tech is one, there is a phlebotomist also; otherwise tech do the night inpatient draws. Sounds similar.

I work at a 107-bed facility, and the assigned BB Tech doesn't have enough work to keep busy the entire shift. Maybe half-time on an average day shift M-F. We generrally have only one evening, night and weekend tech for the entire lab.

I think alot depends on the acuity level and the patient population. We are almost enirely computerized, whih reduces paperwork to a minimum.

We are a 110 bed facility. During the week there is a dedicated tech in blood bank. Most of the kit immunology testing is part of this responsibility as well. Additionally reference test processing is part of the mix as well as quality assurance verification for completion. During second and third shifts there is not an assigned tech in blood bank (falls to whoever is available). During the weekend dayshift the blood bank tech also picks up hematology and urinalysis duties. The chemistry tech on the dayshift weekends works to help cover the workload in heme and urines as these are physically located away from blood bank and difficult to cover concurrently. Hope this helps answer the question.

Deny

At our 235 bed hospital, we have more than enough workload to keep a person busy on dayshift nearly all the time. On those days they are not busy in blood bank they do go into to hematology or chemistry to assist. On 2nd shift, a person is assigned to blood bank, but helps out as necessary in other areas. On 3rd shift, the person in hematology is respponsible for covering blood bank. We do NOT have personnel that specialize in one area; all are generalists. A laboratory tech is a unique creature with many talents. To squander all those skills in one are is not efficient use of these skills. In much larger institutions the workload may demand more attention being given to the different departments, but I still believe generalists are the best use of techs.

Yes, crosstraining is the key. I am NEVER comfortable with only one tech in the building that can do BB...what if something happens to that person, they suddenly become ill, etc. I agree that the more generalists that you have, the more flexible you are. Especially in these times of short staffing.

Agreed. We are all generalists to a greater or lesser degree. The technical specialists are scheduled in the departments they are held responsible for most often.

We are a 300 bed hospital and have always scheduled our lab staff to rotate through the various sections of the laboratory. 25 years ago labs at other hospitals laughed at us and called us "behind the times". Guess what? They're not laughing any more. These last 10 years have brought some very difficult times in staffing and budgeting, and we have just plugged along. Most other hospitals in the area have experienced major upheavals in staffing levels and staffing patterns in order to meet the demands. The shift to cross-training has been a "systems shock" to a lot of the laboratorians who have worked many or all of their years in only one department at those other institutions.

Back to the original question: As long as staff is adequately trained and understand their responsibilities/priorities, then "YES", it should be expected that they float to other areas of the lab when time permits.