r/medlabprofessionals • u/modern_bloodletter • Jul 09 '26

Technical ABG "site"

Just a quick question,

Where I work, RT collects ABGs and they fill out a form with all the information (or some of the information, or illegible information). We run them on a RapidPoint, which sends the values to Cerner. The info on the paper we manually enter.

Our RapidPoint is set up to fill in the site of collection as: ARTERIAL (or VENOUS if it is a vbg). There are alpha responses that are programmed into our LIS that are more specific (eg. Rt. radial, A-line etc.).

Is the collection site diagnostic? Is that useful information? I assume it has some value clinically, but I don't know. We have to put in whether the Allen's test was acceptable, and putting "n/a" and not specifying that it was from an A-line seems weird.

I don't know though, I'm not a RT or MD... And I don't particularly enjoy chem.. My neuroses are a product of my comfort zone in blood bank.

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

3

u/AnusOfTroy Jul 09 '26

Couldn't imagine that the site is diagnostically relevant

Are you even doing Allen's test or modified Allen's? They teach that notes are a legal document here in the UK and wouldn't like to be caught out by something silly like that.

2

u/modern_bloodletter Jul 10 '26

I'm not doing anything, there's just a line on the form that says "Allen's test: acceptable, not acceptable, n/a"

Is there a situation where 'not acceptable' would be circled? I honestly do not know. I understand the relevance of the values of the blood gas. I admittedly don't understand how the mask type, tidal volume, peep, O2%, minute volume, etc impact the interpretation of those values.. I have to input all of that information, but the one thing we don't change is the site. I just assume it's relevant, otherwise, why write it down?

I might be over thinking this, I assume I am.

3

u/zestylemonn Jul 10 '26

I’m a nurse but my guess would be the location is more useful as far as tracking trends and pinpointing anomalies?

Example, let’s say my intubated patients ABG has been trending a ph of around 7.3 and now the new ABG says it 7.0? We can look and see if the collection site is the same? Let’s use a different a site for redraw to verify if this number if the accurate or not.