Compliance rate of standard blood sampling guidelines at our hospital

Abstract

The ease or difficulty of blood collection varies from patient to patient. According to the standard blood collection guidelines, it is recommended for patients to tightly clench their fist after tying the tourniquet around the arm. However, in the actual blood collection, the conditions often vary. We examined whether it would be possible to improve the efficiency of blood collection by increasing the rate of compliance with the recommended method and unifying blood collection conditions. Blood samples were collected from 1,353 patients (591 males, 762 females, average age of 60.0 years). In this study, seven conditions were set, which were considered from the blood collection procedure in accordance with the standard blood collection guidelines. The person collecting blood did not give any instructions to the patient and observed the patient’s arm and tied it with a tourniquet. When the recommended method was used, 54% of the patients did all the blood collection conditions, 27% of the patients did the conditions for blood collection with clenching the fist, and 19% of the patients did not clench their fist. In addition, in 5% of patients, swelling of blood vessels was observed when they clenched and unclenched their fist. Results of this study showed that 36% of the patients had their blood collected by methods different from the recommended methods. It was also found that adherence to the recommended method prevented difficult blood collection events caused by the patient’s natural behavior. Further improvement of compliance with the recommended guidelines will enable a smooth blood collection.