This document provides a joint recommendation for venous blood sampling of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working Group for Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE) and Latin American Working Group for Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE-LATAM) of the Latin America Confederation of Clinical Biochemistry (COLABIOCLI). It offers guidance on the requirements for ensuring that blood collection is a safe and patient-centered procedure and provides practical guidance on how to successfully overcome potential barriers and obstacles to its widespread implementation. The target audience for this recommendation are healthcare staff members directly involved in blood collection. This recommendation applies to the use of a closed blood collection system and does not provide guidance for the blood collection with an open needle and syringe and catheter collections. Moreover, this document neither addresses patient consent, test ordering, sample handling and transport nor collection from children and unconscious patients. The recommended procedure is based on the best available evidence. Each step was graded using a system that scores the quality of the evidence and the strength of the recommendation. The process of grading was done at several face-to-face meetings involving the same mixture of stakeholders stated previously. The main parts of this recommendation are: 1) Pre-sampling procedures, 2) Sampling procedure, 3) Post-sampling procedures and 4) Implementation. A first draft of the recommendation was circulated to EFLM members for public consultation. WG-PRE-LATAM was also invited to comment the document. A revised version has been sent for voting on to all EFLM and COLABIOCLI members and has been officially endorsed by 33/40 EFLM and 21/21 COLABIOCLI members. We encourage professionals throughout Europe and Latin America to adopt and implement this recommendation to improve the quality of blood collection practices and increase patient and workers safety.

Introduction Scope of the guidance Disclaimer Methodology I. Pre-sampling General considerations on appropriate mode of communication with the patient Patient position Step 1. Patient identification (1C) Step 2. Verify patient is fasting and properly prepared (1B) Step 3. Obtain supplies required for venous blood collection (2C) Step 4. Labeling and/or identifying tubes (1C) II. Sampling Step 5. Put on gloves (1C) Step 6. Apply tourniquet (1A) Step 7. Select venepuncture site (1B) Step 8. Clean sampling site (1B) Step 9. Puncture the vein (1A) Step 10. Drawing blood into the first tube (1A) Step 11. Release the tourniquet (1A) Step 12. Gently invert the tubes once immediately after collection (1B) Step 13. Draw additional tubes following the recommended order of draw (1B) Step 14. Remove the needle from the vein and ensure the safety mechanism is activated (1A) Step 15. Dispose of the needle (1A) Step 16. Bandage the puncture site (1C) Step 17. Tell the patient to apply gentle pressure and do not bend the arm (1C) Step 18. Invert all tubes at least 4 more times (1B) Step 19. Remove gloves (1A) III. Post sampling Step 20. Advise the patient to rest for 5 min (1B) IV. Implementation of the guidelines Potential barriers and challenges Framework for a successful implementation of this recommendation Conclusions References

PostprintThis is the accepted version of a paper published in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination.Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Bölenius, K., Söderberg, J., Hultdin, J., Lindkvist, M., Brulin, C. et al. (2013) Minor improvement of venous blood specimen collection practices in primary health care after a large-scale educational intervention. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory

BackgroundThe literature indicates that current home care service are largely task oriented with limited focus on the involvement of the older people themselves, and studies show that lack of involvement might reduce older people’s quality of life. Person-centred care has been shown to improve the satisfaction with care and quality of life in older people cared for in hospitals and nursing homes, with limited published evidence about the effects and meanings of person-centred interventions in home care services for older people. This study protocol outlines a study aiming to evaluate such effects and meanings of a person-centred and health-promoting intervention in home aged care services.Methods/designThe study will take the form of a non-randomised controlled trial with a before/after approach. It will include 270 older people >65 years receiving home care services, 270 relatives and 65 staff, as well as a matched control group of equal size. All participants will be recruited from a municipality in northern Sweden. The intervention is based on the theoretical concepts of person-centredness and health-promotion, and builds on the four pedagogical phases of: theory apprehension, experimental learning, operationalization, and clinical supervision. Outcome assessments will focus on: a) health and quality of life (primary outcomes), thriving and satisfaction with care for older people; b) caregiver strain, informal caregiving engagement and relatives’ satisfaction with care: c) job satisfaction and stress of conscience among care staff (secondary outcomes). Evaluation will be conducted by means of self-reported questionnaires and qualitative research interviews.DiscussionPerson-centred home care services have the potential to improve the recurrently reported sub-standard experiences of home care services, and the results can point the way to establishing a more person-centred and health-promoting model for home care services for older people.Trial registration NCT02846246.

BackgroundVenous blood sampling is a common procedure in health care. It is strictly regulated by national and international guidelines. Deviations from guidelines due to human mistakes can cause patient harm. Validated questionnaires for health care personnel can be used to assess preventable "near misses"--i.e. potential errors and nonconformities during venous blood sampling practices that could transform into adverse events. However, no validated questionnaire that assesses nonconformities in venous blood sampling has previously been presented. The aim was to test a recently developed questionnaire in self reported venous blood sampling practices for validity and reliability.FindingsWe developed a questionnaire to assess deviations from best practices during venous blood sampling. The questionnaire contained questions about patient identification, test request management, test tube labeling, test tube handling, information search procedures and frequencies of error reporting. For content validity, the questionnaire was confirmed by experts on questionnaires and venous blood sampling. For reliability, test-retest statistics were used on the questionnaire answered twice. The final venous blood sampling questionnaire included 19 questions out of which 9 had in total 34 underlying items. It was found to have content validity. The test-retest analysis demonstrated that the items were generally stable. In total, 82% of the items fulfilled the reliability acceptance criteria.ConclusionsThe questionnaire could be used for assessment of "near miss" practices that could jeopardize patient safety and gives several benefits instead of assessing rare adverse events only. The higher frequencies of "near miss" practices allows for quantitative analysis of the effect of corrective interventions and to benchmark preanalytical quality not only at the laboratory/hospital level but also at the health care unit/hospital ward.

The aim of this article is to describe the Umeå ageing and health research programme that explores person-centred care and health-promoting living conditions for an ageing population in Sweden, and to place this research programme in a national and international context of available research evidence and trends in aged care policy and practice. Contemporary trends in aged care policy includes facilitating ageing in place and providing person-centred care across home and aged care settings, despite limited evidence on how person-centred care can be operationalised in home care services and sheltered housing accommodation for older people. The Umeå ageing and health research programme consists of four research projects employing controlled, cross-sectional and longitudinal designs across ageing in place, sheltered housing, and nursing homes. The research programme is expected to provide translational knowledge on the structure, content and outcomes of person-centred care and health-promoting living conditions in home care, sheltered housing models, and nursing homes for older people and people with dementia.

Abstract:It is now undeniable that laboratory testing is vital for the diagnosis, prognostication and therapeutic monitoring of human disease. Despite the many advances made for achieving a high degree of quality and safety in the analytical part of diagnostic testing, many hurdles in the total testing process remain, especially in the preanalytical phase ranging from test ordering to obtaining and managing the biological specimens. The Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE) of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) has planned many activities aimed at mitigating the vulnerability of the preanalytical phase, including the organization of three European meetings in the past 7 years. Hence, this collective article follows the previous three opinion papers that were published by the EFLM WG-PRE on the same topic, and brings together the summaries of the presentations that will be given at the 4th EFLM-BD meeting "Improving quality in the preanalytical phase through innovation" in Amsterdam, 24-25 March, 2017.

BackgroundPhlebotomy performed with poor adherence to venous blood specimen collection (VBSC) guidelines jeopardizes patient safety and may lead to patient suffering and adverse events. A first questionnaire study demonstrated low compliance to VBSC guidelines, motivating an educational intervention of all phlebotomists within a county council. The aim was to evaluate the impact of a large-scale educational intervention program (EIP) on primary health care phlebotomists’ adherence to VBSC guidelines. We hypothesised that the EIP would improve phlebotomists’ VBSC practical performance.MethodsThe present study comprise primary health care centres (n = 61) from two county councils in northern Sweden. The final selected study group consisted of phlebotomists divided into an intervention group (n = 84) and a corresponding control group (n = 79). Both groups responded to a validated self-reported VBSC questionnaire twice. The EIP included three parts: guideline studies, an oral presentation, and an examination. Non-parametric statistics were used for comparison within and between the groups.ResultsEvaluating the EIP, we found significant improvements in the intervention group compared to the control group on self-reported questionnaire responses regarding information search (ES = 0.23-0.33, p < 0.001-0.003), and patient rest prior to phlebotomy (ES = 0.27, p = 0.004). Test request management, patient identity control, release of venous stasis, and test tube labelling had significantly improved in the intervention group but did not significantly differ from the control group (ES = 0.22- 0.49, p = < 0.001- 0.006). The control group showed no significant improvements at all (ES = 0–0.39, p = 0.016-0.961).ConclusionsThe present study demonstrated several significant improvements on phlebotomists’ adherence to VBSC practices. Still, guideline adherence improvement to several crucial phlebotomy practices is needed. We cannot conclude that the improvements are solely due to the EIP and suggest future efforts to improve VBSC. The program should provide time for reflections and discussions. Furthermore, a modular structure would allow directed educational intervention based on the specific VBSC guideline flaws existing at a specific unit. Such an approach is probably more effective at improving and sustaining adherence to VBSC guidelines than an EIP containing general pre-analytical practices.