Compliance of blood sampling procedures with the CLSI guidelines

An observational study was conducted in 12 European countries by the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase (EFLM WG-PRE) to assess the level of compliance with the CLSI H3-A6 guidelines.

Twelve European countries participated with a median of 33 (18 – 36) audits per country, and a total of 336 audits. The median error rate for the total phlebotomy procedure was 26.9 % (10.6 – 43.8), indicating a low overall compliance with the recommended CLSI guideline. Patient identification and test tube labelling were identified as the key guideline issues with the highest combination of probability and potential risk of harm. Administrative staff did not adhere to patient identification procedures during phlebotomy, whereas physicians did not adhere to test tube labelling policy.

Read more:
cclm20141053.indd - 2.15 Simundic CCLM-2014-1053.pdf

Source: EFLM