What precautions are taken while collecting blood sample?

The COVID-19 threat hasn’t receded yet. We understand that our valued customers are fearful about the virus reaching their homes when a technician arrives to collect a sample. But diagnostic tests cannot be halted because your health and wellbeing depend on the detection and management of an illness. That is why we want to assure you that we have strictly implemented the COVID-19 protocol recommended by WHO for sample collection.

Our technicians are taking specific precautions for preventing the spread of COVID-19 while collecting samples:

The technician has to –

• Wear a face mask at all times.

Maintain strict hand hygiene which includes –

1. Rigorously sanitizing the hands with WHO-approved sanitizers and rubbing the hands dry with sanitized and disposable hand towels.
2. Once the hands are dry, the technician will slip on well-fitted non-sterile gloves.

• After the sample has been collected, the technician will dispose off the used gloves after leaving the customer’s home and wear a fresh pair for the next sample collection. 
• Urge the person whose sample is being collected to wear a mask too for everyone’s safety.
• Download the Arogya Setu app and his/her status should show green (meaning the technician is COVID-free).
• Undergo frequent and regular temperature scanning.
• Use a new needle for every sample collection.
• Ensure that no waste product is disposed off at the customer’s home.

General guidelines followed by our technicians to ensure that sample collection does not cause any inconvenience or trigger other illnesses:

• Technicians always wear clean, non-sterile gloves. They put on fresh gloves before every new sample collection.
• Thorough hand hygiene is observed before wearing gloves and after taking them off.
• Technicians use one-time collection kits to ensure that new samples are not contaminated by the remnants of the earlier samples. 
• The technician ensures that the customer is comfortable and in a clean and hygienic place before commencing with sample collection. 
• The area of the skin where the needle will go in is cleansed with an alcohol swab and is allowed to dry for at least 30 seconds. 
• The technician will carry a Sharps container into which the needle and syringe will be disposed off immediately after the sample is transferred into a collection container.
• Once the sample is collected, our technician double-checks to make sure that all the patient details on the sample containers are in order. 
• The technician will present a consent form for the customer’s or his/her family’s signature for tests that mandate consent. 
• Technicians enquire into whether the customer experiences any allergic reaction has any phobias or has a tendency to faint when blood is drawn. He/she will accordingly try to make the customer comfortable and ease the customer’s fears with encouragement. 
• According to medical ethics, a technician requires verbal assent from the customer before drawing a sample because the customer has every right to stop a collection. 
• The technician will explain the process of collection if the customer is not familiar with it. 
• The technician will make sure that the site where the skin was punctured is not bleeding and the customer is feeling alright.
• The samples are to be placed in a sturdy leak-proof and water-proof bag. The requisition form will go into a separate compartment. A chiller icebox is to be used when necessary.
• Utter care is observed while transportation to ensure the collection containers do not break.

We take the sacred duty of helping with the diagnosis and management of diseases by sample collection seriously. Every guideline pertaining to both COVID-19 as well as general customer safety and prevention of sample contamination is willingly adopted.