Hi all,
I am at an outpatient infusion center in a small Critical Access hospital.
There are several patients in the community that have to drive out of the
area for their therapeutic phlebotomy treatments, so it was decided that we
should look into offering this procedure. What I am concerned with is that
there is something we might have not thought about while setting this up.
We will be adopting ad adapting the procedure that is used at our sister
hospital, with standing orders that specify the amount of blood to be
drawn, frequency, minimal acceptable HGB, frequency of ferritin and other
labs. We will be using single blood bags with a trip scale for the
collection.We will be setting up daily QA for the trip scale with monthly
checks of the weights used for QA, and appropriate QA for the hemocue.
Our hospital lab is not FDA registered (I believe that is the correct term)
but I understand that is OK as long as we dispose of the blood and do not
use it. The lab director (new to the job, but very good) believes that
there is some regulation that requires the Medical Director or the Clinical
Pathologist to be in the building during the procedure. This would not be a
normal situation.We have been looking for a reference to that, but have not
found one yet.
Is there anything else that we should be thinking about or asking before we
start investing in the equiptment?
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Gail McCarter
