February 2012 - Posts

Does Your Lab Mislabel Specimens?
February 27, 2012 6:16 AM by Scott Warner

A year ago I blogged about a hospital in Minnesota that reduced labeling errors 75% with a multidisciplinary approach. That’s fine if everyone plays in the sandbox. If nurses and doctors believe it’s the standard of care to mislabel a sample once in a Read More...

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Scoping Blood Bank Tubes
February 22, 2012 6:00 AM by Scott Warner

New people in a lab are great. They bring enthusiasm, experience, and a fresh set of ears and eyes to look at time-worn policies and procedures. Recently, we added several people who have done all this. “When do we run an Ictotest?” I was asked the other Read More...

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Did You Read My Email?
February 17, 2012 6:06 AM by Scott Warner

One of the most common telephone calls I get is, “Did you read my email?” I don’t respond, “Did you walk twenty feet down the hall to talk to me?” mostly because I’m guilty of the same. Telephones are easily domesticated critters. I have caller ID in Read More...

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A New Coat of Paint
February 13, 2012 6:05 AM by Scott Warner

I remember vividly when a former boss decided to paint our laboratory, because the colors she chose were vivid. The lab was a series of connected rooms for each department, and one wall in each department was painted a different color. I can still see Read More...

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Work and Home
February 8, 2012 6:07 AM by Scott Warner

It used to be -- and still is in many cases -- that an employer drew clear lines between personal and work lives. This meant no personal telephone calls, no answering cell phones, and (recently) no blogging or posting status changes to Facebook while Read More...

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Stay in the Loop
February 3, 2012 7:42 AM by Scott Warner

These days, it’s too easy to avoid face to face interactions, enabled by electronic order entry, email, instant messaging, and paging. And sometimes this can take the lab out of the loop. Two examples: A physician orders blood cultures on an inpatient. Read More...

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