Arizona health department awarded for new infant blood screening process
Sep 18, 2014, 3:03 PM | Updated: 3:04 pm
PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Health Services was given its first-ever Newborn Screening Quality Award by the March of Dimes on Thursday.
The department was awarded because of its efforts to reduce the amount of time it takes newborn baby blood samples to the state lab, where they can be screened for any potentially deadly conditions.
Normally, it takes about three days to transport a newborn’s blood sample from a hospital to the state lab.
“In January 2014, 67 percent of the blood spot samples were getting from the hospital to our state laboratory in three days,” said ADHS Director Will Humble. “Some were taking more than five days to get to our lab, and that’s not acceptable.”
Humble said much of the problem involved babies who are born on a Friday. Though the samples were taken on-time, a a lack of staff on the weekends meant the process of delivering them to the lab didn’t begin until Monday. Humble said ADHS resolved the issue by staffing courier services on Saturday and worked with hospitals to improve their shipping and receiving areas.
“Through the changes that we’ve put together, we are now at 99 percent (of the samples getting from the hospital to the state lab) within three days, and we have average transit time of only 1.3 days,” Humble said.
The March of Dimes said because of the changes, Arizona’s Newborn Screening Program is one other states should follow.