Phlebotomy in the intensive care unit: strategies for blood conservation. Review uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • The quality and economy of critical care could both be improved if blood losses due to phlebotomy and sampling from indwelling catheters for unnecessary diagnostic testing were curtailed. Practice guidelines can help to break bad diagnostic 'habits', such as fever work-ups that require substantial blood to be drawn yet typically yield little useful information. Invasive hemodynamic monitoring is associated with morbidity due to blood loss as well as infection, and newer noninvasive technologies should be encouraged. Several devices allow blood that would otherwise be wasted during sampling to be returned to the patient aseptically. Point-of-care testing uses microliter quantities of blood, has acceptable precision, and can provide valuable diagnostic information while being minimally invasive.

publication date

  • June 14, 2004

Research

keywords

  • Blood Preservation
  • Critical Care
  • Critical Illness
  • Phlebotomy

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC3226149

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 4344589417

PubMed ID

  • 15196321

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 8 Suppl 2