One of the specialized services in healthcare sector that requires professionalism is phlebotomy. The professional carrying out phlebotomy services is called as a phlebotomist.
What does a phlebotomist do?
It is the responsibility of a phlebotomist to extract blood from a patient, mark it with special identification mark, preserve it and send it to the diagnostic lab for further analysis.
The work does appear to be as simple as it can be. But, in actual practice, it does require specialized training, and professional approach.
In the first case, a phlebotomist deals with human blood, extraction of the same in samples, and organizing for further analysis in the lab. The possibility of getting exposed to diseases transmitted through blood and related contamination is quite more. Thus the primary responsibility of a phlebotomist is to ensure that extreme caution and safety standards are strictly followed, because any slackness in this duty might lead to spread of contamination to surroundings and lead to unexpected consequences.
A phlebotomist has to work under the instructions and / or directions of a doctor or a licensed health care professional.
The routine duties or responsibilities of a phlebotomist include, but not limited to, the following:
- The phlebotomist collects the samples of blood and other fluids from a patient for further analysis. Before collecting the samples, it becomes imperative on the part of the phlebotomist to ensure that the environment and the instruments used for collecting samples are sterile and fit to use for the first time.
- The phlebotomist follows professional attitude and extracts blood from the right place in the right manner without causing much inconvenience to the patient. The patients may not be of specific age group or with a certain disease. Blood samples need to be taken, out of necessity, from an old man or a small kid. Handling each patient with specific care and attention requires a professional approach.
- The phlebotomist should ensure that the sample collected from a patient is marked with specific identification marks, which include the name of the patient and/or other specific marks such as bed number or patient number, so that there is no confusion whatsoever. If any such problems occur, the consequences might be worse in that the person, not having any complications, might be given treatment for complication.
- It is the responsibility of the phlebotomist to record the events, in the patient’s health history, follow up with the sample in the lab, ensure that the results for the sample released from the lab match with the sample taken from the said patient, by matching the identification marks, and provide the same to the physician for further diagnosis of the patient.
- In most circumstances, the only person contacting with the patient from the laboratory department will be the phlebotomist. As such, he or she should have present before the patient in the best possible manner, with clean and smiling face and a confidence look. This will give the patient a sense of satisfaction and assurance that the job done by a clean phlebotomist will also be a clean one.
- Ensuring cleanliness and safety measures in the workplace where blood samples will be extracted is one of the primary responsibilities of a phlebotomist.
- An experienced phlebotomist should also take up the additional responsibility of teaching and training new persons in this specialized function such that quality phlebotomist professionals are created and nurtured in health care sector.
These are some of the basic responsibilities of a phlebotomist.