Blood Drug Testing

How often do blood tests get tainted?

My son had two blood tests done in the ER (in a calm casual atmosphere). Both tests came back with false positives for bacteria in the blood. I wonder if there are any statistics around this. I ask because...the first bad sample caused a second ER visit + two days of hospitalization. I'm guessing this will be about $500 out of my pocket + probably $5000 billed to my insurance company. Just doesn't seem right.

Public Comments

1. This can happen quite often. Still I'd recommend taking him somewhere else if the ER keeps contaminating the sample. If the person (a nurse or vascular access technologist) is sterilizing the arm, wearing gloves, using clean equipment, etc., and is trained well, it shouldn't happen two times in a row. That's pretty unusual. I used to work in a lab, though, and I will tell you that a bad sample means bad results. The next time you take him in, tell whoever is drawing the blood about what's happened and request that they do the procedure is as sterile of an environment as possible.