Blood sample integrity in question

The Stephens Memorial Hospital District (SMH) board of trustees confirmed the mishandling of “significant amounts of blood volume” regarding blood samples on Thursday, Jan 23 at the O.C. Heairren Annex building.
System malfunctions involving blood samples were identified as a cause for the decrease in lab volume over the past few months.

Since May, Clarity Lab the outreach lab used by SMH, has seen a sharp decline in the volume of blood; decreasing in blood samples from 585 in May to just six blood samples in December. The decrease was thought to be due to the summer months, but have continued to decline.

Clarity Lab is SMH’s most profitable industry and the board is expecting a quarterly update on the practices and procedures of the lab.

At the Dec. 19 meeting, SMH board meeting, an update was given citing a reason for the slowing of samples partly due to a provider at the clinic out due to a cardiac event.

The current board meeting saw Weston Black and Stacy Crumpler of Clarity Labs address the board on the decreasing numbers.

“There was an issue with volumes disappearing, calculations not calculating correctly,” said Crumpler, a representative from Clarity Lab.

The lab is in a 90-day process of cleaning and training employees on the proper procedures of collecting blood samples and running the clinic correctly.

“The minute you have something happen like that with doctors and when you have something like that pop up on the report, you make the doctors question everything else,” Crumpler said.

For the full story, see the Wednesday, Jan. 29 edition of the Breckenridge American.