Care providers rely on laboratory results to provide a link between a patient’s clinical symptoms and a diagnosis. Phlebotomists play a key role in this process by ensuring proper specimen identification and affirming the correct type of specimen is collected at the right time.
A phlebotomist’s primary duty is collecting blood specimens, which are then used for different kinds of medical testing or for procedures.
Aside from accurate and timely collections, phlebotomists also screen and enter patient data into the lab’s computer systems.
Phlebotomists are the faces of the laboratory, so they must be compassionate, good collaborators, meticulous, possess good hand-eye coordination and multitask.
Central phlebotomy at Memorial Hospital is a phlebotomy-only laboratory. It has 60 employees, including Carol Bridges, Laboratory Manager, and Ramona Carter, Laboratory Supervisor. Their staff covers the emergency room and inpatient locations 24/7 and the outpatient laboratory Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In 2022, phlebotomists at Memorial Hospital performed over 256,525 venipunctures and maintained a median collection time of less than 15 minutes for all ER collections.
An average of 35 phlebotomy students from local programs rotate through the department each year.
