| Allied Health World Home | Phlebotomy | |
Phlebotomy Training Program
By an allied health world contributing writer
Published: January 13th, 2010
Benefits of Phlebotomy Career
Being involved in the front line of patient care is very satisfying for phlebotomists. It is also very rewarding for phlebotomists to feel 
that they are a part of the healing process and making an improvement in the health of the people they encounter every day. A phlebotomist’s role is very important to the patient’s diagnosis, medication, and treatment. Many phlebotomists also enjoy the patient interaction they experience in their role.
Phlebotomy Training
The majority of states will hire individuals right out of high school to be phlebotomists and train them on the job. However, it is preferred to hire those individuals who have completed a phlebotomy training program after high school at a vocational or technical school.
Learn more about phlebotomist schools.
When individuals are hired without going through a formal phlebotomy training program, the hospital trains them but the problem with this approach, versus going through a formal program, is that every hospital trains differently. Most states do not have regulations as to how many hours a phlebotomist needs to be trained or the content they need to be trained in. They basically teach newly hired phlebotomists how to draw blood the way that they prefer. Oftentimes this on-the-job training approach backfires on hospitals because these newly trained phlebotomists are let loose on patients after being inadequately trained. That’s why more states need to adopt formal requirements on what the minimum training in this profession should be.
State Phlebotomy Regulations
There are only three states that require any kind of minimum phlebotomist training: California, Louisiana and Nevada. California has far and away the most comprehensive set of requirements for entry. In 1998 there was legislation implemented that mandated phlebotomists have 80 hours of training at a state approved school, have completed 50 supervised successful venipunctures and 10 successful skin or capillary punctures, and have successfully completed a certification exam. The program they complete can be either a certificate or a degree program but the most important component the state is concerned with is the 80 hours of training.
While Louisiana and Nevada’s regulations were in effect long before California’s, their standards are pretty watered down in comparison. In Nevada you have to be a certified laboratory assistant to draw blood. In Louisiana everyone is pretty much exempt from their legislation so it is considered by many to be fairly ineffective.