Newborn blood gases

We use the iSTAT for blood gases...I do have a procedure that I could send separately if you send me your email.  They have a choice to collect blood 3 ways, capillary (heel stick), arterial and venous...they rarely use venous but use the other 2 the most frequently.  The arterial is collected by our providers since it is covered in their privileges by the hospital (that is a question on the CAP survey)

We use the Radiometer ABL 800 or ABL 90 that is run in NICU by RTs. They draw mainly capillary specimens that can be processed on both analyzers.

Thanks Kelly.  My email is lhenson@witham.org.  What capillary tube do they use and are the nurses collecting the sample?  How many/month does your staff perform?

Does anyone do point of care arterial cord blood gases? If so what instrument are you using and what is your error rate due to clotted or qns specimens?

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We use epoc and and have no issues.  We have a low error rate and card failure rate. We use Alere's capillary tubes for heel sticks. We also perform venous and arterial gases on newborns. The epoc is great in the nursery because the card is QC'd before you draw the blood. If there was an iQC failure, you have not wasted the sample.