Module 1 Phleb

• Phlebotomy is an incision into a vein, one of the oldest medical procedures, dating back to the early Egyptians, for the collection of blood samples for laboratory analysis to diagnose and monitor medical conditions.
• Excess of body fluids, like blood, can cause a disease.
• Removal of the excess body fluids can cause a body to return to or maintain a healthy state.
• Bloodletting, now called “therapeutic phlebotomy”, was a technique used in the past to remove excess body fluids.
• Techniques for bloodletting included suction cup devices with lancets that pulled blood from the incision, leeches, barber surgery, and using the familiar red and white striped barber pole.
• A phlebotomist is a person trained to obtain blood samples primarily by venipuncture and microtechniques.
• Stat or stat stands for work that must be done immediately, as in an emergency.
• Communication in healthcare involves three components: verbal skills, listening skills, and non-verbal skills.
• The American’s Zone of Comfort is: Intimate 2 ft, Personal 2 to 4 ft, Social 4 to 12 ft, Public > 12 ft.
• Phlebotomist certification is offered by organizations such as American Medical Technologists, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American Society of Phlebotomy Technicians, National Phlebotomy Association, and National Healthcare Association.
• Hospital patient-care areas include the emergency department, intensive care unit, cardiac care unit, pediatrics, nursery, and labor and delivery.
• Support services in a hospital maintain the hospital and include communications systems, food service/dietary, housekeeping/environmental services, laundry, engineering and maintenance, and security.
• Fiscal services in a hospital manage the business aspect of the hospital and include accounting, admitting, the business office, credit and collection, data processing, health information management, planning, and public relations departments that include marketing and outreach programs.
• Professional services in a hospital assist the physician in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
• Support and fiscal services departments in a hospital include engineering and maintenance, housekeeping/environmental services, dietary/food service, business office, admitting, marketing/public relations, health information management, human resources, volunteer services, central supply, and the clinical laboratory.
• Chemical Hazards dictate that chemicals should never be mixed together unless specific instructions are followed, and they must be added in the order specified.
• Biohazards include never recapping a needle.
• All electrical equipment is grounded with a three-pronged plug.
• Persons working in a radioactive environment are required to wear measuring devices to determine the amount of radiation they are accumulating.
• Fire/Explosive Hazards follow the RACE: Rescue, Alarm, Contain, Extinguish/Evacuate protocol.
• The Standard System for the Identification of the Fire Hazards of Materials, NFPA 704, is a symbol system used to inform firefighters of the hazards they may encounter when fighting a fire in a particular area.
• “AAA” stands for Always Add Acid.
• Turning off the circuit breaker and moving the equipment using a nonconductive glass or wood object are safe procedures to follow.
• All chemicals and reagents containing hazardous ingredients in a concentration greater than 1% are required to have a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).
• The clinical laboratory is responsible for the analysis of surgical specimens, frozen sections, biopsies, cytological specimens, and autopsies.
• Autopsy is for the dead to know the cause of death.
• Biopsy is for the living to remove the tissues for cancer testing.
• Hematocrit (HCT) determines the volume of red blood cells packed by centrifugation (expressed as a percent).
• Platelet (PT) count determines the number of platelets in circulation.
• Reticulocyte (Retic) evaluation determines the production of new red blood cells.
• Body fluid analysis determines the number and type of cells in various body fluids.
• Urinalysis (UA) Section may be a separate laboratory section or a part of the hematology or chemistry sections; detects disorders and infections of the kidney and to detect metabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus and liver disease.
• Bone marrow differential determines the number and type of cells in the bone marrow.
• Hemoglobin (Hgb) indices determine the oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells.
• Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) determines the amount of hemoglobin in a red blood cell.
• Clinical Laboratories Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA’88) is a government regulatory agency administered by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA); all laboratories that perform testing on human species for the purpose of the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, or screening must be licensed and obtain a certificate from the CMS.
• Blood banking is the section of the laboratory where blood may be collected, stored, and prepared for transfusion.
• Serum separator is accepted in blood banking.
• CLIA classifies laboratory tests into four categories: waived, moderate, high, and research.
• Routine Urinalysis consists of physical examination, chemical examination, and microscopic examination.