Specimen Requirements

• Arterial or venous puncture collection technique resulting in a good blood flow into a plastic collection device without anticoagulant, clot activators, or serum separators.
• If using an indwelling catheter, fluid drip must be discontinued; flush the line with 5mL of saline AND remove 5mL of blood or 6 dead space volumes.  Discard that sample.  Obtain 1mL of fresh sample using a plastic syringe.  Immediately dispense into the sample well of the cartridge.  The collection syringe cannot contain anticoagulants such as heparin, EDTA, oxalate, or citrate.