Question

Case Study No. 2
You are performing the last draw of your shift. It’s been a long day and you are looking forward to meeting your friends for pizza right after work. The patient is prepped, the tourniquet is on, and you reached for the red-topped tube which is the last one on your tray. As you are about to insert the multi-sample needle into the tube, you noticed the expiration date – it just expired. Should you go ahead and perform the draw anyway since the tube contains no additives that might go bad over time and the vacuum is almost certainly still good? Or should you stop the draw and ask the patient to wait while you get another tube? (Must explain in 20-30 sentences)

Answer 1

In this case even after the patient is preapred and touniquate is applied should stop and ask the patient to wait and should collect the blood in the correct red topped vaccutainer iself.

Red topped blood bottles are plastic serum tubes with out any additives . It  contain clot activators.. These are used for serum determination in biochemistry, serology and hematological tests.After the blood collection the red vaccutainer has to be inverted for minimum of 5 times.It should keep in upright position in the room temperature for about 60 minutes.

The reasons for not to collect the samples in expired vaccutainers are as follows

a.Expiry date of blood collection vaccutainer should be checked routinely and before going to patient's bed side.If the tubes are expired it should be discarded immediately. In the expired tubes rubber stoppers may be cracked and broken .The expired tubes may not have adequate vaccum. Due to the decreased vaccum may not draw the exact amount of blood to fill the tube completely. So short filled tubes may not be sufficient for test and will be recommend to recollect the blood. As red tubes does not contain any additives it wont have any degradation problems.

b. Proper collection and timely processing are very important steps in the blood collection. Even we followed these steps properly also if the blood is collected in expired tube it will affect the accuracy of test result.It will affect the treatment plan. Blood result not only for diagnosisof condition but also used for monitoring the effectiveness of the treatment. The accuarate results helps in  patient's care.

c. If vaccutainer is expired also not allowed to collect the blood in one container and transfer to another container.Transfering causes reduction of blood volume and it will produce spurious result.This causes repeatition of test .It causes discomfort to the patient.