Blood taking hasn't been this easy!!

A practice of blood taking in Emergency Department is an usual sight. As the patient placed on the bed,  we usually take blood while setting the "plug" (IV line). Some may be done easily, since the veins are visible and were easily punctured, but then, some patients may suffer more because of the failure of puncturing. 

This was seen and been taken care of:

ISRN Emergency Medicine
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 508649, 6 pages
doi:10.5402/2012/508649
Research Article
Comparison of Full Blood Count Parameters Using Capillary and Venous Samples in Patients Presenting to the Emergency DepartmentR. Ponampalam,1 Stephanie Man Chung Fook Chong,2 and Sau Chew Tan1
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, 169608, Singapore
2Department of Clinical Research, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, 169608, Singapore
Received 29 May 2012; Accepted 10 July 2012
Academic Editors: A. Banerjee, C. C. Chang, and A. Pazin-Filho
Copyright © 2012 R. Ponampalam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract
Full blood count (FBC) analysis is a common investigation done in the emergency department (ED). The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of bedside FBC analysis using capillary blood samples from a finger stab at point of care (POC) compared to a conventional venous blood sample analysis. A total of 314 consecutive patients presenting to the ED were recruited. After consenting, a sample of the patient’s venous (V) blood was obtained via venepuncture and sent to the haematology laboratory for analysis as standard practice. This was followed immediately by collection of a capillary (C) blood sample from a finger stab which was analysed at site using an automated FBC analyser at POC. Agreement between the paired samples for blood parameters including the total white cell count, hemoglobin, and platelet count was assessed by the statistical method of Bland and Altman using V sample as the gold standard. The results showed a statistically significant deviation between capillary and venous samples only for platelet counts (𝑃 < 0 . 0 0 1) and haemoglobin (𝑃 < 0 . 0 0 1). However, the magnitudes of this difference 7.3 × 109/L and 0.5 g/dL respectively, were not clinically significant. The study suggest that the analysis of capillary samples for FBC parameters is a reliable and acceptable alternative to conventional methods with the benefits of being a rapid, convenient, and minimally invasive technique.

The full article may be read here:

ISRN Emergency Medicine Journal