The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) has just released the long-awaited seventh edition of the venipuncture standard. 

"This revision is the most comprehensive in the document's history," says Dennis J. Ernst MT(ASCP), NCPT(NCCT), who chaired the committee that revised the standard. "Four years in the making, every passage was intensely scrutinized by some of the most highly respected authorities in the industry. I had a real dream team working on this document."

Features of the revision include:

• A comprehensive literature review of over 400 articles and studies
• 56 new references
• 149 new mandatory requirements for the procedure
• A new reader-friendly design in full color with more images, tables, and graphic elements
• Complete reorganization as a Quality Management Systems document

The committee also added new appendices that provide detailed guidance on maximum blood volumes to be collected on patients susceptible to iatrogenic anemia, drawing from pediatric, elderly, obese, oncology, needle-phobic, and cognitively impaired and combative patients, and preventing syncope.

“Any facility that isn't using this as a basis of their procedure manual is putting themselves at risk of operating beneath the standard of care," says Ernst. "Users of GP41 are more likely to provide patients with a standardized phlebotomy experience, maintain sample quality, prevent patient injury, and release test results that accurately reflect the patient’s health status. Not only that, but they have the confidence their procedure manual is based on a standard established by the consensus of highly respected authorities from some of the most prestigious organizations on the planet."

The standard is available from CLSI and, by special arrangement, the Center for Phlebotomy Education. Click here to purchase and download your digital copy. (Hard copies will be available in September.)

[Editor's note: having chaired this revision, I can tell you it is a solid document. My committee, a preanalytical dream team if there ever was one, let no passage or reference escape our rigorous scrutiny. If I had to list what I feel are my most significant contributions to the industry so far, this would in the top three.]