We call all newborn blood types and DAT results to nursing services.  We also call all blood types on females who are within child bearing age.   This seems very redundant considering the results are readily available to nursing services in their HIS.   I would like to see this policy go away completely or at least tweaked to only calling positive DATs or blood types on RH negative females within child bearing age.  It has been explained to me that we do this as a courtesy and also as patient advocates.   Nursing services has also complained about this practice because they have to stop what they are doing to come to the phone when results are readily available in the computer.  So any thoughts?

LEAN it is not! I agree with you that such telephone calls cause more problems than they solve.

Use the HIS especially if Nursing would rather that . . .

Makes more sense to point them towards their HIS - less chance of transcription errors that way too.  Beside, when you call them - what are they doing with the information?  Recording it anywhere or just saying "OK" and going on with their work? 

 

We only call babies with a positive DAT and that only because we need them to order some follow up work on the baby (cord bilirubin, etc).

Makes more sense to point them towards their HIS - less chance of transcription errors that way too.  Beside, when you call them - what are they doing with the information?  Recording it anywhere or just saying "OK" and going on with their work? 

 

We only call babies with a positive DAT and that only because we need them to order some follow up work on the baby (cord bilirubin, etc).

 

Couldn't agree more. We also call only when DAT is positive - it is one of our critical call-outs, otherwise they can check in the LIS. We even refuse info' about blood types on phones - two residents wrote wrong groups in patient files - long ago when read-back was not in policy. Hence now no reports are given on phone.

I think sometimes administrators use the terms like "courtesy" and "patient advocacy"  in situations where they really have little idea what it means to do the work that it takes to take care of the patient appropriately.  They need education.  Whoever is making comments like this needs to have a discussion with you and the nurses, ward clerks, etc. to explain how this is a problem for the patient.  Possibly you can get your director or a nursing director to be an advocate for you on this -- make them think that the idea of dropping these nuisance calls is their idea.

 

Scott

By all means, point them to rely on their computer system for the results (rather than verbally giving them the results.)

We still do have a Positive DAT on newborns on our Panic Value List, so we do call the Nursery to notify them that we just turned out a Panic Value on Baby So-and-so. (However, I would like to drop this from our Panic List.) I would certainly hate to take the time to call all results on newborns and OB patients.

Thanks everyone for the input.  We are all keeping our fingers crossed that our new supervisor will discontinue some of these practices that were started 40+ years ago (before computers) and have continued to today.  

For obstetric and neonates: We call neonatal DAT if Positive greater than 1+.  We call Cord Blood ABO/Rh if mother is Rh Neg and infant is Rh Pos to notify they need to order RhoGam workup on mom. If Antibody Screen is performed, we call positive antibody screen results.  Other than that we do not call.

Edited October 18, 201311 yr by Sandy L

We were asked by nursing to NOT call these results because it "takes the nurse away from the patient and they can view the results in the EHR".

 

Saved a ton of time for the BB and the nsg staff.

We call positive DATs on the cord bloods. I don't even know why we do that, since they can now see that in the HIS. If the DAT is from a clinically significant alloantibody in the mom, and the baby is antigen positive, we also make a call to the pediatrician.

I would stop calling the blood types...not necessary.

Many centuries ago when I started in the lab we didn't have computers and all results were sent out on paper; urgent ones were phoned through to the doctor in charge of the patient - not the nurses.  So if you've got a functioning computer system, what is the rationale now behind phoning the results to the nurses.  I can understand that if you have a neonate with a 4+ positive DAT phoning it through to the paediatrician, or an unbooked pregnant mum with sickle cells and an anti-U going for an urgent Caesarian phoning it through to the haematologist and the obstetrician - but what exactly are the nursing staff going to do with this information?

Makes more sense to point them towards their HIS - less chance of transcription errors that way too.  Beside, when you call them - what are they doing with the information?  Recording it anywhere or just saying "OK" and going on with their work? 

 

We only call babies with a positive DAT and that only because we need them to order some follow up work on the baby (cord bilirubin, etc).

In total agreement here. The potential for transcription errors is huge.

I really like the question; "What are they doing with the results when you call?".  If they are not documenting and acting it's simple, quit calling after educating them on the proper use of computer available results.  Even if they are documenting and acting, educate and stop!  You are wasting your time and theirs.  I've said for years that I wish Alexander Graham Bell's parents had never met! 

I really like the question; "What are they doing with the results when you call?".  If they are not documenting and acting it's simple, quit calling after educating them on the proper use of computer available results.  Even if they are documenting and acting, educate and stop!  You are wasting your time and theirs.  I've said for years that I wish Alexander Graham Bell's parents had never met! 

Most likely they are just saying thank you and then going on about their business because they know it is just policy.