Effective immediately there has been an update to scheduling breath testing. Both the Bacterial Overgrowth and Lactose Intolerance breath tests must be scheduled through Epic or via Spectrum Health MyChart app.
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Outpatient Phlebotomy
Spectrum Health Laboratory has updated its policy regarding expected date. For those providers that send an expected date of draw with your electronic order to our laboratory, there was a change on April 24, 2019 for Epic Providers and there will be a change on May 13, 2019 for EMR interface offices. From these dates forward, if you send us an expected date of draw, our phlebotomists will draw up to 14 days before your expected date and anytime thereafter until the order expires. If we do not receive an expected date of draw, we will treat the order as ready to collect from the day it arrives till one year out, when it expires. All Laboratory orders, including standing or future orders, are valid up to 400 days unless otherwise specified.
Chemistry, Compliance & Safety, Education & Training, General Information, Referral/Sendouts
Preservative For 24 Hour Urine Collections
In both the inpatient and outpatient settings, the laboratory has supplied 24 hour urine containers with preservative such as acetic acid, sodium hydroxide, and boric acid. Upon review of specimen stability requirements, it has been determined that a preservative is not needed prior to collection of most 24 hour urine tests as long as the 24 hour container is kept refrigerated or on ice during the collection period.
Effective August 1, 2018, Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory will no longer stock Sequenom Collection Kits. If a patient presents with a Sequenom Collection Kit, our outpatient phlebotomy staff will continue to aid the patient in collection. If needed, please order Sequenom Collection Kits from the manufacturer.
Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory will still offer Panorama Collection Kits. For more information on Panorama testing please click here.
Effective August 8th, Spectrum Health Laboratory will ask all patients to indicate how long they have been fasting (regardless of whether they were fasting or not) when they present for Lipid testing. In light of recent discussions in the literature that debate the utility of fasting prior to lipid testing; we recognize that some clinicians may now not require their patients to be fasting and hope that reporting out length of fasting (hours) with each lipid result will allow all clinicians to better interpret their patient’s lipid results. If fasting is desired; Spectrum Health Laboratory recommends no caloric or caffeine intake for at least 8 hours. The patient is not to drink (other than water), eat, smoke, chew gum, candy, cough drops, etc. for at least 8 hours prior to their blood tests. Prescribed medications are allowed.
Spectrum Health Regional Laboratory now has ONE centralized fax number to which you can send your lab orders! This means no more searching for the fax number for a particular draw site for your patient. We will enter the faxed orders into our system, making them available to ALL of our draw sites; so your patient will have access to their order at their favorite draw site and the added convenience of going to any draw site that they choose!
*The new fax line number is: 616-774-7696
*If you are faxing an order for a patient that plans to go to a draw site immediately, please write “Patient En Route” on the order, so that it may be prioritized.
* Please note: Specimen add-on orders (additional tests for specimens in-lab) are still faxed to 616-267-2751, as stated on the add-on form.
Any laboratory testing order can be faxed to (616) 774-7696 and that order will be accessible from any Spectrum Laboratory Draw Site in the Grand Rapids, Big Rapids, Gerber (Fremont) and Zeeland area.
Per the memo sent out July 2012, the Grand Rapids area laboratories will draw patients after hours on a limited basis at the Butterworth Hospital Laboratory location ONLY. We will serve patients with emergent laboratory needs with a direct physician request. The laboratory will be unable to accommodate routine walk-in patients outside of normal business hours.
The physician will need to call the Laboratory Call Center at 616-774-7721 to initiate the blood draw for their critical needs patient. Please be prepared to provide our Call Center with relevant information regarding the patient’s situation. You will also be asked to fax a written order to 616-391-3129, and should direct your patient to the Butterworth Admitting for the blood draw. Be advised that this process may take up to 30 minutes to complete the draw using our inpatient phlebotomy staff.
We request that all routine blood draws return to one of our convenient Outpatient laboratory locations during normal business hours. Most laboratory locations are open Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. We recommend that if there is a question regarding hours of operation to contact the draw site.