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Article: Blood loss from laboratory tests
- Article from:
- Clinical Chemistry
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Association for Clinical Chemistry Oct 2003. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Background: Laboratory tests can be an important source of blood loss in hospitals, especially for newborns and patients in intensive care. The aim of this study was to quantify blood loss for laboratory diagnostic tests in a large number of patients in a teaching hospital.
Methods: We estimated blood loss by multiplying the number and volumes of sampling tubes collected from 2654 adult inpatients. We compared the number of tests per patient for all inpatients and intensive care unit patients during the first period and again in the same time period 1 year later when cumulative blood-loss volumes were being reported to physicians and educational information had been given to decrease blood ...