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Today, labels are imperative in medical environments such as hospitals or blood banks. This is because they function as a communication method between doctors, nurses, and technicians in busy, grueling work environments. Blood specimen labels are a way for professionals to identify the patient and type of sample received from a health facility. Mislabeled or missing identifiers have been a consistent problem as samples make their way from one facility to another in the medical industry.

This often results in the reporting of devastating, untrue news to patients and increased costs thanks to the need to rerun tests. Guidelines help in avoiding these problems; however, reliable materials with the right information make it even harder for a mix-up to occur. Mislabeling of specimens before they are sent to the blood bank makes it difficult to identify who the sample belongs to and what tests need to be run.

Reducing the Mislabeling of Blood Specimens
The key to preventing these errors is using proper policies to ensure specimens are taken and documented appropriately. It also helps to have a dependable provider who is able to offer labels that do not easily wear, tear, or become damaged. An improperly identified specimen is costly and will require a number of backtracking steps.

This means unneeded funds will be dedicated to every mislabeled specimen as well as running the tests for the right individuals and samples. Putting a defined process in place for collecting the samples and using dependable blood specimen labels will prevent mismatches, unlabeled samples, incomplete information, and mislabeling errors. These identifiers decrease facility and lab costs when used appropriately. They also prevent the unfortunate mix-up of delivering potentially devastating information to the wrong patient.

The first step involves ensuring the right information is placed on the blood specimen label before it is sent. Another important factor is using identifiers that do not easily wear or come off the sample. Pre-printed options make blood specimens simple to read and will not smudge when acquired from a dependable provider. A blood specimen label should have most if not all of the following information to ensure accurate identification:

1. Patient’s Full Name
2. Hospital Identification Number
3. Patients Identification Number
4. Date & Time Collected
5. Specimen Type & Required Tests
6. Physician or Tech Ordering the Tests

This information is helpful in ensuring the right tests are performed for the appropriate patient in the lab. Required data may be printed on-site with generic labels or you can obtain pre-printed versions where each needed piece of data is filled in by a staff member. It is important to enforce legibility as well when filling out a blood bank specimen label to guarantee readability in the lab.

Shamrock Labels offers several blood specimen label options to ensure each sample you collect receives the proper attention. We use durable, resistant materials capable of withstanding exposure to long periods of cold. These same materials are able to maintain reliability in frequent condition changes. If you are looking for a dependable provider, we would love to help by providing high quality choices at an affordable cost. We are ready to help you today! Call us at (800) 323-0249 or fill out the contact form and we will be right with you!