Position: Phlebotomist
Location: Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX


Schedule:
Days, Evenings, Nights, Weekends, and Federal Holidays for the duration of the contract.

Shall be required to provide phlebotomy services as needed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including Federal Holidays. Shift start and end times may be changed at the discretion of the Specimen Acquisition Section Supervisors.

Outpatient draw clinic is open Monday-Friday from 6:00 am – 5:30 pm.

Services:
These positions are in the Specimen Acquisition Section and provide services on the inpatient units and in the outpatient specimen collection clinic. The Phlebotomist shall be responsible for routine and more complex blood drawing from patients with difficult to access veins, such as geriatric patients, spinal cord patients and cancer patients.

Phlebotomist Duties:
• Performs Phlebotomy duties on inpatients and outpatients. Contract 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 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.
• Contract staff will adhere to the VAMC Customer Service Standards of Behavior Policy.

Minimum Requirements:

Each Phlebotomist must have at least two years of work experience in the field of phlebotomy and perform within the last 3 years.

Basic Life Support (BLS) certification through the American Heart Association

High School Diploma or Equivalent

Completion of a certified phlebotomy program 

How to Apply:
Please apply below for consideration. For additional questions, please contact Valerie Vazquez via email at Vvazquez@nursesetc.net

EEO Statement:
NURSE’S Etc. STAFFING provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. All employment is decided based on qualifications, merit, and business need.