Month: April 2022

Shortage on Tubes for Blood Collection

Posted on by Sheryl Rosen

Dear providers,

A heads up from the clinical laboratory – due to current supply chain disruptions, we have a shortage with some of the blood tubes used for lab testing. This is not a problem unique to UConn Health - hospitals around the United States are facing vacutainer tube shortages that may last through mid-2022. UConn Health has also been impacted by these shortages. While this supply chain disruption has affected different tubes, the main issue right now is with the serum separator tube (gold-top) and the red top tubes. These two tubes are used mainly for chemistry and serology.

We ask you to be mindful of this supply shortage and help conserve vacutainer tubes in clinical sites. We need everyone’s help to ensure that we have enough tubes to test our patient population. To conserve vacutainer tubes for our patient population at UConn Health, please consider reducing testing frequency and avoiding duplicate test orders.

Please feel free to circulate this with your colleagues, fellows, and residents and make this information available.

We are working closely with the Office of Logistics Management to address this urgent matter. We are diligently ordering as we can and exploring all options to mitigate the impact of this shortage.

Thank you for your help and patience during these national supply shortages of vacutainer tubes.

Anu Maharjan, Ph.D.
Director, Clinical Chemistry Laboratory
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Office: 860-679-2629, Cell: 860-921-1643
Email: amaharjan@uchc.edu

Jessica L. Underwood, MPH
Administrative Director
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Room C2052
263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT 06030
Office: 860-679-3760, Cell: 860-560-3281
Fax: 860-679-0105

Enrique Ballesteros, M.D.
Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Office: 860-679-6714, Cell: 860-348-6122