A common-sense approach to bloodwork

Feature Stories | 12 Jan 2024

Photo Credit: KHSC/Matthew Manor.

Learn about a new, ground-breaking approach to bloodwork at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) involving faculty at Queen’s Health Sciences, including Dr. Jeannie Callum, (Professor, Pathology and Molecular Medicine) & Director of Transfusion Medicine for KHSC. The pilot study in KHSC’s ICU was led by Dr. Christine D’Arsigny (Associate Professor, Critical Care) & Dr. Curtis Oleschuk (Assistant Professor, Pathology and Molecular Medicine).

Blood is a precious, limited resource. Besides a transfusion, there’s no way to immediately replace it. That’s why KHSC is one of the first hospitals in Canada to reduce the amount of blood it collects for testing, reducing hospital patient strain and demand on donated blood products.

Each day in hospital an average patient loses 22 milliliters of blood in the sample collection tubes used for laboratory testing. If a patient needs a very long hospital stay, this results in a lot of blood loss. So, blood tests create a challenging trade-off for patients. While bloodwork provides crucial information to help guide treatment, losing too much blood can increase the risk of anemia, a shortage of red blood cells, and blood transfusion.

To help, KHSC introduced a new approach to blood testing earlier this fall that reduces blood-loss from diagnostic testing. The idea is simple: replace standard blood test vials with smaller tubes that draw less blood. These tubes are routinely used for children in hospital, but have never been widely used in adults.

It sounds like a small change, but it’s having a big impact on patients.