Dear all,
Would like to pick your brains. Had an incident on Saturday whereby there were 16 samples with spurious hyperkalemia (K+ > 8mmol/L). These were scattered around various locations: emergency department, different wards, and medical ICU.
12 were clustered within a 2 hour time frame ie 10-12pm; and 4 more were between 2-4pm. We retested the specimens and all appear to have contamination with severe hypocalcemia.
Different staff (various drs/nurses/phlebos) collected the blood tubes, and when spoken to, appeared to know the correct order of draw. Analyzer QC appears OK, tested samples on another analyzer which shows same results. Strangely, only one medical laboratory assistant was responsible for receiving the samples, and she denies decanting/pouring blood from EDTA tubes. I tested the BD Vacutainers with similar lot numbers from the various locations with serum - no contamination
Help/advice if any would be greatly appreciated!
PS: if anyone knows a reliable EDTA serum assay please let me know too.
Thanks
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