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The New Order of Draw

 

The NEW Order of Draw
Based on CLSI* standard H3-A6
 
revised November, 2007

When Using Evacuated Tubes

The order of draw according to CLSI standard H3-A6 is as follows. This order should ALWAYS be followed to prevent erroneous results due to additive crossover:


1.) Blood cultures (yellow) SPS (sterile)

2.) Light blue (buffered sodium citrate tube)

3.) Red (plain), or Tiger-Top mottled red (gel separator tube)

4.) Green heparin and light green (sodium or lithium with or without separators)

5.) Lavender (EDTA)

6.) Pink, white, or royal blue (EDTA)

7.) Gray (Na flouride/potassium oxalate)

8.) Dark blue (FDP)

 REMEMBER:
 *NCCLS changed their name to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) on 1 January 2005.


The current edition of the CLSI catalog and CLSI hematology standards are available upon request from either CLSI membership organizations as well as to non-members directly from CLSI.

bullet Contact CLSI for the latest order of draw information

bullet BD Vacutainer® Order of Draw for Multiple Tube Collection PDF

bullet Proper Handling of BD Vacutainer® Citrate Tubes (discard tube explained)

bullet University of Iowa's illustration of the order of draw by tube top color

 


Watch this video of multiple blood draws using different types of evacuated tubes:


attention ATTENTION: Please realize that this video (published from YouTube) is NOT HERE TO TEACH you phlebotomy techniques, but merely to show you different scenarios of the phlebotomist's daily routine. The video may contain techniques, or procedures that do not conform to proper, and/or safe venipuncture protocol.

 

When Using The Syringe System:

The document by the then National Committe for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS*) from 1991 established two distinct orders of draw for vaccum tube draws and syringe method. This is now obsolete! NCCLS revised these standards in 1998 because there was a lack of evidence that syringes need a separate order of draw.