LAB - Medical Laboratory Assistant; PRN

Position: LAB - Medical Laboratory Assistant (PRN)
This is a temporary position not to exceed 12 weeks. PURPOSE OF THIS POSITION The primary purpose of this position is to follow departmental standard operating procedures and routines for specimen handling, including but not limited to: receiving, registering, accessioning, processing, staining, plating, and labeling of clinical laboratory specimens. This will include processing of shared clinical laboratory, microbiology, cytology & pathology specimens, care of department instruments and analyzers, related housekeeping duties, maintenance of instrument logs, logging specimens into computer, receiving stock, performing QC on culture media, as well as maintaining a clean and safe environment.

Interacting with customers both internally and externally and being a productive TEAM member of the laboratory and will work closely with the medical technologists and other members of the clinical and anatomical pathology laboratory staff. The associate may be responsible, at the direction of members of the laboratory management team and medical technologists to prepare specimens for culture, send out, packaging, ordering, and assisting with other clerical duties as needed.

The associate will set up equipment, prepare solutions, and prepare supplies to be distributed to physician offices. The associate must perform accurate and complete registration of all specimens delivered to the laboratory, ensuring all specimens are ordered correctly in the LIS. Performs the day-to-day laboratory tasks in accordance with current federal, state and local standards, guidelines and regulations and as may be directed by the Laboratory Director, Laboratory Manager, Department Coordinators, or medical technologists.

The associate will be responsible for clerical tasks concerning patient orders and resolution of problems, charge auditing, inventory duties including receiving of stock, department set-up duties including temperature checks and blood culture management, and data management of QC, QA, and instrument maintenance. JOB DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES Duty 1:
Practices effective communication skills, i.e. listening, phone skills, etc. and always maintains a respectful and courteous attitude. Communication reflects the organizations culture of Service Excellence. Makes suggestions in a positive, tactful manner. Maintains clean, neat, professional appearance, i.e. wears , slip resistant shoes, and complies with department dress code. Duty 2:
Properly processes incoming specimen requisitions, maintaining accuracy of all demographic information for registration and submission process in the LIS system. Always uses two patient identifiers to ensure identification accuracy. Checks all corresponding specimens for accuracy and completeness of information checking and correcting of orders, investigate specimen problems, receive specimens in the LIS, evaluate the quality and appropriateness of specimens received.

Duty 3:
Accurately prepares working reagents and stains to ensure good quality of slides or culture media. Maintains good quality control and instrument maintenance records at all times. Keeps accurate inventory of supplies and reagents and assists in ordering as directed by the department coordinator. Distributes supplies to all necessary locations within the laboratory. Maintains proper filing system for patient requisitions, log sheets, and other documentation.

Duty 4:
Technical tasks:
Culture of biologic specimens, prep of specimens for testing, staining of slides, and other processing under the supervision of the technologists. Limited testing with supervision and may report CLIA waved tests with all proper training and competency documented according the regulatory requirements. Technical and analytical error recognition and reporting, loading instruments, critical value and STAT result recognition and calling. Perform daily temperature checks, remove completed blood culture bottles from analyzer, manage hold over specimens, and send out specimens to reference labs.

Limited maintenance of instruments, perform QC documentation, enumeration of QA data, printing of LIS reports and worksheets. Organism maintenance and sub-culturing. Duty 5:
Completes all mandatory learning requirements for specific job along with assigned laboratory competency requirements and documentation. Works within and consistent to the Mission, Vision and Values of the association and successfully pursues completion of all personal and departmental goals. Exhibits…