NEEDED: PHLEBOTOMIST

LOCATION: 2002 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030

SETTING: Inpatient wards and outpatient clinics

SCHEDULE: Inpatient units operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week, including weekends and Federal Holidays, and the outpatient draw clinic is open Monday-Friday from 6:00 am – 5:30 pm.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• US Citizen
• 2 years of phlebotomy experience within the last 3 years

JOB DESCRIPTION:

• Performs Phlebotomy duties on inpatients and outpatients.
• Phlebotomists must be competent to perform tasks and assignments independently, which may include drawing blood from 40 to 80 patients per day and handling at least 20% of hard sticks.
• Assembles equipment such as tourniquet, needles, blood collection devices, gauze, vacuum tubes, alcohol, chloral prep and etc. on work tray, blood collection cart or work area.
• Verifies and correctly identities patients utilizing two approved patient identifiers prior to drawing blood, per Medical Center Policy, Specimen Collection Policy and The Joint Commission guidelines, and converses with the patient to allay fear of the procedure.
• Draws blood and blood cultures from patients using proper venipuncture techniques and methods.
• Uses plastic vacuum tubes, blood collection needle or blood collection set (butterfly) to obtain samples.
• Applies tourniquet to arm, locates accessible vein, swabs puncture area with disinfectant, and inserts needle into vein to draw blood; withdraws needle, applies treatment to puncture site.
• Labels in presence of patient, initials and transports blood collected to processing area; Uses Trans Logic system to tube specimens to third floor laboratory from outpatient’s Blood Lab.
• Ensures that the sufficient amount of blood is drawn for each requested test or procedure.
• Outpatient specimen collections are not only limited to blood collection, but it does include different kinds of urine collections and performing glucose tolerance testing.
• May perform various other technical laboratory procedures such as computer test accessioning, specimen centrifugation, serum separation, etc.
• Interprets and clarifies physician’s orders from written requests and hard copies of orders and may input test orders into the computer; Uses Multipurpose Accessioning option, Pre-Accessioning options,  Activate Pre-Accession Numbers option or etc.
• Rotates to answer telephone requests for verbal test requests, test add on(s), test results; utilizes computer to access the necessary data and communicates this data
• (results) to physicians, nurses and other authorized medical personnel as necessary.
• Records rejected specimens according to rejection protocols such as misidentified, unidentified specimens or specimens with insufficient volume drawn, wrong tube etc.
• Must provide superb customer service and great communication skills.
• Will adhere to the VAMC Customer Service Standards of Behavior Policy.

BENEFITS: Competitive hourly pay rate, accrued vacation, accrued sick leave, 11 paid federal holidays, and healthcare benefits contributions.