Laboratory sampling. Does the process affect the outcome?

K Becan-McBride

PubMed · 10640077

Laboratory sampling. Does the process affect the outcome?

Abstract

With the rapidly changing healthcare environment, one of the many increasing tasks for the intravenous team is blood sampling. Laboratory test results are based on the quality of the patient's blood specimen. The preanalytic phase of laboratory testing accounts for 46% of laboratory testing errors, so it needs to be managed effectively to eliminate costly, inefficient, and sometimes life-threatening outcomes to patients. The use of quality blood collection procedures and an awareness of preanalytic errors are presented to lead to quality patient outcomes.

Explore related subjects

Blood Specimen Collection Diagnostic Errors Humans Medical Laboratory Science Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care Journal Article Review

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

K Becan-McBride. Laboratory sampling. Does the process affect the outcome?. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10640077/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2001

[Regional program to improve the quality of blood transfusions in hospitals: experience of the Poitou-Charentes region].

In the Poitou-Charentes area, a regional pilot program was implemented over a two year-period to improve transfusion safety in public and private hospitals. This program consisted in: (i) an evaluation of the transfusion chain in hospitals; (ii) a regional program to guide hospitals in improving the quality process. Five workgroups were set up. Three persons in each hospital should participate in the workgroup: one representing the administration, one the medical staff and one the nursing staff. After a six months follow-up several hospitals were prompted to implement corrective and preventive measures to improve transfusion safety; (iii) a letter was regularly published to contribute to set-up a regional haemovigilance network. Such a quality improvement program revealed to be a relevant method to steer the changing blood transfusion process in hospitals.

Blood Specimen Collection↗

PubMed2001

CMV gB genotypes and outcome of vertical transmission: study on dried blood spots of congenitally infected babies.

BACKGROUND: The role of the virulence of the infecting cytomegalovirus (CMV) strain in the transmission of the virus from mother to fetus and the outcome of the fetal infection has not received much attention yet. Molecular analysis of the gene coding for the surface glycoprotein B (gB) has been used to investigate the relationship between genotype and virulence in groups of immunosuppressed patients. OBJECTIVES: (1) to assess the prevalence of different gB genotypes in babies with congenital CMV infection; (2) to investigate the possible relationship between genotype and severity of congenital CMV disease; (3) to evaluate the possibility of using dried blood on Guthrie cards (DBS) for genotyping. STUDY DESIGN: CMV DNA was extracted from DBS and from urine/saliva samples collected in the first two weeks of life of 98 congenitally infected babies, half of which were symptomatic at birth. Genotyping was performed through RFLP analysis of the region corresponding to the cleavage site of the gB protein. RESULTS: The most prevalent genotype was gB1 (42%) followed by gB3 (26%), gB2 (19%) and gB4 (13%). Rates of disease and CNS damages were higher among children infected by gB1 (35%, 17%) and gB3 (31%, 28%) than in those infected by gB2 and gB4 (20%, 17% and 13%, 15%, respectively). These differences however did not reach the statistical significance. The parallel typing of DBS and urine/saliva strains gave a full concordance of results. CONCLUSIONS: All four major CMV gB genotypes (gB1-4) can cause a congenital infection but none seems to be associated to the development and the severity of disease. The possibility of using the neonatal DBS for genotyping opens a way to the examination of large numbers of cases of congenital CMV infection.

Blood Specimen Collection↗

PubMed2001

Contact and nutrient caregiving effects on newborn infant pain responses.

To understand how the 'caregiving context' could affect responses to procedural pain, the authors sought to determine whether (1) the combined effects of sweet taste and holding (caregiving contact) were greater than the effects of either alone, (2) any combined effects were additive or interactive, and (3) the interventions had similar effects on behavioral (crying and facial activity) and physiological (heart rate, vagal tone) responses to the heel-stick procedure in newborn infants in a randomized two-factorial intervention trial. Eighty-five normally developing newborn infants were studied with a mean gestational age of 39.4 weeks on the 2nd or 3rd day of life. Infants were randomized in blocks of eight to receive (1) no holding and water taste (control participants), (2) no holding and sucrose taste (sucrose group), (3) holding and water taste (holding group), or (4) holding and sucrose taste (holding and sucrose group). Crying was reduced significantly by taste and holding, and the interventions combined additively. Facial activity was only significantly reduced by holding. For physiological measures, the interventions interacted with each other and preintervention levels to reduce heart rate and lower vagal tone more during the procedure in infants in whom heart rate and vagal tone were higher before intervention. Consequently, sweet taste and holding interventions combined in complex ways when acting on different behavioral and physiological response systems to modify stressful pain experiences. The results suggest that providing a caregiving context when painful procedures are performed may be a simple and practical method of reducing pain experience in infants, and that no one measure captures these effects.

Blood Specimen Collection↗