No more phlebotomist in the hospital?!

The place I work for wants to get rid of all phlebotomist and make nurses do lab draws. I work on a telly floor. This means many lab draws that get ordered all ..day.. long.... K+, Mg+, Troponin, PT. Not to mention nearly everyone on the floor has daily CBC, and Chemistry.

Honestly, I am thinking about leaving. We already have too many patients, and never enough staff. Often no nurse aids, so we do everything. It's total pt care with up to 6 telemetry patients. (Most of the time I feel like I work in acute care nursing home).

Does this sound reasonable to you? We aren't getting an increase in pay for the increase in work.
I've worked at the same hospital for 2 yrs. we do all our own labs/IV starts/Abgs. That's TOTAL pt care.

I work on an Ortho unit and we draw all our labs too; I prefer it as I know it gets drawn, keep up my skills and know quickly about my patients vein status (should they need a new IV during my shift). It might not be as bad as you think, most of the time you will draw all the tubes at once unless they need cardiac markers or are on a heparin drip. Good luck!

It becomes part of your routine pretty quickly. Also, our Techs can draw labs. Triponins in our facility are every 8 hours, so conceiveably, you would have 1 extra blood draw per shift. There are lots of ways to incorporate this into your daily routine--we also do our own labs, our own IV's, etc. If you are a night shifter, you have one triponin to draw, and might as well draw for the am labs as well if your policy says you can do this. If you are rotating IV sites, draw off that, again if your policy allows this. Perhaps if you have one aide on the floor per shift, they can do the draws for the floor if your facility policy allows them to do so? I would feel badly that your phlebotomist's are losing their jobs. However, for a number of nurses drawing labs is part of the job that we do. The Joint Commission has some rules regarding this--mostly revolving around patient ID stickers need to be at the bedside, and labs labelled accordingly at bedside. Otherwise, I would ask what the new policy is, get a copy of it, and just be sure--much like giving meds, that they are properly labelled and sent, entered in computer--and again, it becomes part of the daily routine when you assess your patients.

Quote from squatmunkie_RNThe place I work for wants to get rid of all phlebotomist and make nurses do lab draws. I work on a telly floor. This means many lab draws that get ordered all ..day.. long.... K+, Mg+, Troponin, PT. Not to mention nearly everyone on the floor has daily CBC, and Chemistry.Honestly, I am thinking about leaving. We already have too many patients, and never enough staff. Often no nurse aids, so we do everything. It's total pt care with up to 6 telemetry patients. (Most of the time I feel like I work in acute care nursing home). Does this sound reasonable to you? We aren't getting an increase in pay for the increase in work.

It's not at all unusual, but it's still ridiculous. 6 patients is too many for telemetry.

Of COURSE you shouldn't have the additional duty of phlebotomy.A cost cutting measure by the facility that makes them money and loads more on the backs of nurses.I find many comments regarding: keeping my skills up, labs are the nurses's responsibility.. ad nauseum.. have been made by failry new nurses who have been brainwashed to accept the HUGE time consuming chore of drawing their own labs. Let's do the EKG's, the respiratory treatments.... baths , beds, feeding ,ambulation now that's primary care! Great for the PRIMARY goal of the administration..... profits.Now when your patient complains of chest pain, add several blood draws to the other additional nursing interventions such patient would need.Been there, did that with 6 on a telemetry unit ... it was enough to put the already overworked nurses over the edge.

I worked for a hospital that had (and still has) a very good reputation. Nurses/techs on the unit did all blood draws and all started all peripheral IVs. The nurset ratio is another issue, but as for no phlebotomists--not all that uncommon.

Quote from Been there,done thatOf COURSE you shouldn't have the additional duty of phlebotomy.A cost cutting measure by the facility that makes them money and loads more on the backs of nurses.I find many comments regarding: keeping my skills up, labs are the nurses's responsibility.. ad nauseum.. have been made by failry new nurses who have been brainwashed to accept the HUGE time consuming chore of drawing their own labs. Let's do the EKG's, the respiratory treatments.... baths , beds, feeding ,ambulation now that's primary care! Great for the PRIMARY goal of the administration..... profits.Now when your patient complains of chest pain, add several blood draws to the other additional nursing interventions such patient would need.Been there, did that with 6 on a telemetry unit ... it was enough to put the already overworked nurses over the edge.

Quote from PaxRNI work on an Ortho unit and we draw all our labs too; I prefer it as I know it gets drawn, keep up my skills and know quickly about my patients vein status (should they need a new IV during my shift). It might not be as bad as you think, most of the time you will draw all the tubes at once unless they need cardiac markers or are on a heparin drip. Good luck!

We haven't had phlebotomists, EKGs techs nor RTs in some areas for a long time. Patient care has actually improved. RNs don't have to page someone, wait for them to decide to return the call and finally get to the patient when they decide they are ready. Too much wasted time trying to depend on others for simple tasks. You can do these basic tasks and get things started quickly. Ever tell someone who was having difficulty breathing that they would have wait until the RT finished lunch or their smoke break? How about the patient with chest pain and the EKG tech isn't answering their page?

Quote from Been there,done thatOf COURSE you shouldn't have the additional duty of phlebotomy.A cost cutting measure by the facility that makes them money and loads more on the backs of nurses.I find many comments regarding: keeping my skills up, labs are the nurses's responsibility.. ad nauseum.. have been made by failry new nurses who have been brainwashed to accept the HUGE time consuming chore of drawing their own labs. Let's do the EKG's, the respiratory treatments.... baths , beds, feeding ,ambulation now that's primary care! Great for the PRIMARY goal of the administration..... profits.Now when your patient complains of chest pain, add several blood draws to the other additional nursing interventions such patient would need.Been there, did that with 6 on a telemetry unit ... it was enough to put the already overworked nurses over the edge.

I agree with the above poster, I would much rather be doing my own draws and EKGs, vitals, etc. I work in Canada so practice could be different here- we do TOTAL patient care...and literally everything lol. I even have to feed most of my patients (which takes up ALOT of time if its super busy - and I work majority of my shifts in ED) but alas we don't have techs or CNAs here we have personal support workers but not in the ED where I am. We also have to do our own baths...showers, sometimes room cleans if we have too. Yup!