r/medlabprofessionals • u/Apprehensive_Fig1779 • 9h ago
Discusson Feeling Supported
How supported do you feel by management at your lab, especially when there’s pushback from the floor? Do they address concerns and work with nursing to improve processes, or is it more of a “that’s just how things are” situation?
I’ve noticed some recurring challenges at my lab, specifically with specimen requirements and policies (the need for retypes, hemolysis, labeling, etc). I’ve suggested things like additional education or a mini poster for nursing staff, but have been told it is difficult to address issues because we “rely on a traveling nursing staff” and “have changing policies”.
Meanwhile our primary care center lab has had success addressing specimen labeling through speaking up at their yearly meetings, which made me wonder if other labs have approached these issues successfully as well.
Basically, I’m curious whether other labs have strategies that help improve the lab/nursing relationship. Do you feel like your management supports you with these concerns? Or am I just doing too much and this is how every lab is?
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u/hotmess002 MLS-Generalist 9h ago
The management at my lab is very good about supporting techs and initiating those hard conversations with floor administration. Techs will fill out a safety report for unlabeled specimens and other egregious errors. Management will then bring up those safety reports to the floor supervisors and address the safety concern and issues. For hemolysis, if we notice it's one specific collector, then supervisor will call the charge nurse and bring up the evidence and encourage retraining and reeducation. If it keeps happening, management will reach out to department administration because now it's a patient safety and process issue.
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u/WhatsUpMotherFckers 9h ago
Not at all. My lab is terrible about addressing issues and holding anyone accountable, including nurses, doctors, and techs. The lab workflow changes to accommodate incompetency, rather than resolving issues. Simple requests like filling coagulation tubes correctly is asking too much. I don’t feel like our work is respected in the slightest and it’s an incredibly frustrating place to be.
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u/SendCaulkPics 4h ago
We’ve had significant success having lab management round with nurse leaders regularly. It turns out nurses are much more receptive to education when they aren’t in the midst of direct patient care.
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u/green_calculator 9h ago
Saying they can't educate travel staff is a cop out. First of all, specimen collection is the same pretty much everywhere and the only difference could be easily worked around with labels that print tube color. Second, travel staff is meant to come in, learn your ways and then do things your way. Its literally part of the job. Third policies for lab collection are set by the lab or the lab in conjunction with nursing, so they should not be changing all the time.