Patient identification and tube labelling – a call for harmonisation
Open accessAbstract
Venous blood sampling (phlebotomy) is the most common invasive procedure performed in patient care. Guidelines on the correct practice of phlebotomy are available, including the H3-A6 guideline issued by the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). As the quality of practices and procedures related to venous blood sample collection in European countries was unknown, the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase conducted an observational study in 12 European countries. The study demonstrated that the level of compliance of phlebotomy procedures with the CLSI H3-A6 guideline was unacceptably low, and that patient identification and tube labelling are amongst the most critical steps in need of immediate attention and improvement. The process of patient identification and tube labelling is an essential safety barrier to prevent patient identity mix-up. Therefore, the EFLM Working Group aims to encourage and support worldwide harmonisation of patient identification and tube labelling procedures in order to reduce the risk of preanalytical errors and improve patient safety. With this Position paper we wish to raise awareness and provide recommendations for proper patient and sample identification procedures.
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Joint EFLM-COLABIOCLI Recommendation for venous blood sampling
Simundic, A.-M., Bölenius, K., Cadamuro, J., Church, S., Cornes, M. P., van Dongen-Lases, E. C., Eker, P., Erdeljanovic, T., Grankvist, K., Guimaraes, J. T., et al. (2018) · Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) · doi:10.1515/cclm-2018-0602 · Cited by 240 · see citing works
Self-citationCornes, M. P., Church, S., van Dongen-Lases, E., Grankvist, K., Guimarães, J. T., Ibarz, M., Kovalevskaya, S., Kristensen, G. B., Lippi, G., Nybo, M., et al. (2016) · Annals of Clinical Biochemistry: International Journal of Laboratory Medicine · doi:10.1177/0004563216643969 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- van Dongen-Lases, E. C., Cornes, M. P., Grankvist, K., Ibarz, M., Kristensen, G. B. B., Lippi, G., Nybo, M., Simundic, A.-M., & on behalf of the Working Group for Preanalytical Phase (WG-P
- Affiliations
- Department of Clinical Chemistry, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- New Cross Hospital (GB)
- Umeå University (SE)
- Laboratori Clínic Hospital Arnau de Vilanova, Lleida, Spain
- Norwegian Clinical Chemistry EQA Programme, Bergen, Norway
- University of Verona (IT)
- Odense University Hospital (DK)
- University Hospital Sveti Duh, Department of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics, Sveti Duh 64, Zagreb 10000, Croatia
- Venue
- Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
- Publisher
- Walter de Gruyter GmbH
- Published
- 2016-01-19
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1141-1145
- ISSN
- 1434-6621 (ISSN-L)
- 1437-4331
- OpenAlex
- W2417682703
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 7.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Clinical Laboratory Practices and Quality Control
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Patient Safety and Medication Errors
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Clinical Biochemistry › Bacterial Identification and Susceptibility Testing
- Keywords
- patient identification, phlebotomy, pre-analytical phase, pre-analytical errors, patient safety, venous blood sampling, specimen identification
- MeSH terms
- Blood Specimen Collection, Diagnostic Errors, Humans, Laboratories, Hospital, Patient Identification Systems, Quality Control, Clinical Laboratory Techniques
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