Effective October 14, 2022, several Spectrum Health West Michigan Outpatient Draw Sites will have updated Friday hours. To see if your site is impacted please see the list below.
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Outpatient Phlebotomy
From collection to transport, Spectrum Health Laboratories must have quality specimens to produce accurate results you can trust. A quality specimen is one that has been collected and transported, keeping specimen integrity and patient identification intact. It is important to remind patients to carefully follow all collection and transportation instructions to ensure the sample usable and not tainted.
Please help remind patients:
♦ Submit all specimens as soon as collection is completed. Many tests are time sensitive.
♦ After collection, make sure lid is secured and fastened evenly, as leaky specimens will be rejected.
♦ Keep the container upright at all times.
♦ If a second container is needed, the patient should obtain a second container from the laboratory or draw site. Do not use home containers (i.e. butter container) or bags, as these may contaminate the specimen.
♦ Specimen is labeled clearly with
◊ Patient’s full legal name
◊ Date of birth
◊ Date and time of collection
Warning: Some kits contain preservatives. Please let patients know to not drink, ingest or inhale fumes. If disposal is needed please contact the laboratory. In case of skin or eye contact, irritation, or swallowing call poison control as soon as possible: 800.222.1222.
For more information, please review “Laboratory Specimen Home Collection Document” or the Lab Catalog for more information.
Education & Training, General Information, Immunochemistry, Main lab, Toxicology
Specimen Collection Updates – July 2021
The following information was updated in the Spectrum Health Laboratory Catalog.
Hemostasis/Coagulation, Referral/Sendouts
Supply Change Notification: 4.5 mL Blue Citrate Blood Tubes
Effective April 26th, 2021, Spectrum Health Laboratories will discontinue 4.5 mL blue citrate blood tubes. These are a vendor discontinued item. The replacement item will be the 2.7 mL blue citrate blood tubes.
Due to this change, there may be a difference in the number of tubes required to collect for the lab tests below. Please refer to the lab catalog for specimen collection requirements.
Spectrum Health Laboratory has updated its policy regarding expected date. For those providers that send an expected date of draw with your electronic order to our laboratory, there was a change on April 24, 2019 for Epic Providers and there will be a change on May 13, 2019 for EMR interface offices. From these dates forward, if you send us an expected date of draw, our phlebotomists will draw up to 14 days before your expected date and anytime thereafter until the order expires. If we do not receive an expected date of draw, we will treat the order as ready to collect from the day it arrives till one year out, when it expires. All Laboratory orders, including standing or future orders, are valid up to 400 days unless otherwise specified.
Chemistry, Compliance & Safety, Education & Training, General Information, Referral/Sendouts
Preservative For 24 Hour Urine Collections
In both the inpatient and outpatient settings, the laboratory has supplied 24 hour urine containers with preservative such as acetic acid, sodium hydroxide, and boric acid. Upon review of specimen stability requirements, it has been determined that a preservative is not needed prior to collection of most 24 hour urine tests as long as the 24 hour container is kept refrigerated or on ice during the collection period.
Effective August 8th, Spectrum Health Laboratory will ask all patients to indicate how long they have been fasting (regardless of whether they were fasting or not) when they present for Lipid testing. In light of recent discussions in the literature that debate the utility of fasting prior to lipid testing; we recognize that some clinicians may now not require their patients to be fasting and hope that reporting out length of fasting (hours) with each lipid result will allow all clinicians to better interpret their patient’s lipid results. If fasting is desired; Spectrum Health Laboratory recommends no caloric or caffeine intake for at least 8 hours. The patient is not to drink (other than water), eat, smoke, chew gum, candy, cough drops, etc. for at least 8 hours prior to their blood tests. Prescribed medications are allowed.
Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory now has ONE centralized fax number to which you can send your lab orders! This means no more searching for the fax number for a particular draw site for your patient. We will enter the faxed orders into our system, making them available to ALL of our draw sites; so your patient will have access to their order at their favorite draw site and the added convenience of going to any draw site that they choose!
*The new fax line number is: 616-774-7696
*If you are faxing an order for a patient that plans to go to a draw site immediately, please write “Patient En Route” on the order, so that it may be prioritized.
* Please note: Specimen add-on orders (additional tests for specimens in-lab) are still faxed to 616-267-2751, as stated on the add-on form.
Any laboratory testing order can be faxed to (616) 774-7696 and that order will be accessible from any Spectrum Laboratory Draw Site in the Grand Rapids, Big Rapids, Gerber (Fremont) and Zeeland area.