Not fit to test: battling high hemolysis rates in the ED

Create PDF

Anne Ford

August 2016—Poverty, unemployment, crime, dropout rates: In some categories, no community wants to be No. 1. And in some categories, no hospital wants to be No. 1 either. High on that list: hemolysis.

“Hemolysis is a big issue,” Michael Phelan, MD, said at the Executive War College meeting this spring. In fact, “it’s the leading cause of unsuitable specimens” at the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus, where Dr. Phelan is an emergency medicine physician.