Healthcare has grappled with a shortage of sodium citrate blood collection tubes — those with a light blue top — since June 2021. But according to an FDA update earlier this year, all blood collection tubes are now in short supply.
The FDA posted on Jan. 19 a set of recommendations to mitigate the shortage:
- Only perform blood draws considered medically necessary, remove duplicate test orders, avoid testing too often and extend time intervals between tests when possible.
- Reduce tests at routine wellness visits and allergy testing only to those that target specific disease states or where it will change patient treatment.
- Consider add-on testing or sharing samples between laboratory departments if previously collected specimens are available.
- If a discard tube is needed, use a tube type that the facility has more of.
- Consider point-of-care testing that does not require using blood specimen collection tubes, such as lateral flow tests.