Reducing neonatal phlebotomy blood losses through the accurate calculation of minimum test volume requirements.

Background: Repeated phlebotomy for laboratory diagnostic testing is a known cause of iatrogenic anaemia and in critically ill neonates often leads to blood transfusion being required. This study has developed a spreadsheet clinical decision support tool to allow neonatal staff to determine the true minimum blood volume required to analyse groups of blood tests and modelled its potential benefit compared with the existing system in use.

Methods: The tool calculates the minimum blood volume accounting for novel factors including the current patient haematocrit for plasma/serum samples, instrument minimum test and dead volumes (including those where shared) and sharing of samples within/between laboratory departments.