Routine lab services aren’t typically top of mind when thinking about nursing homes or the care they provide. Yet, hours before dawn, phlebotomists from American Health Associates (AHA) make the trip to nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the country to collect specimens from patients who depend on routine diagnostic tests to monitor their health. When it comes to vulnerable populations like nursing or long-term care residents, every minute counts. That’s why AHA prides its phlebotomists and lab technicians as “minutemen.”

“We do try to train our phlebotomists to be the kind of people you want to see by your bedside with a needle at 4 o’clock in the morning,” notes Amelia Waters, Vice President of Strategy and Operations at AHA. “[Phlebotomists] are really very much unsung heroes.”

The ability to listen to and understand patients is something that is innate to the phlebotomists at AHA, whom Amelia describe as the “face of the company.” In addition to the technical skills required to serve this population, Amelia highlights the social skills that AHA phlebotomists leverage to build trust with patients, many of whom are elderly and have pre-existing conditions. “On the elderly, it can be tricky trying to draw blood because they’re older or the veins are smaller, thinner, collapsed,” Amelia explains. “You need to be great with people in order to do this well.”

AHA’s commitment to patient care extends further than the face-to-face interactions during regular specimen collection. Understanding that time and quality is critical for patients, Amelia introduced a new online check-in system for phlebotomists to help streamline the clinical laboratory process and improve the tracking and accuracy of the records of the specimen’s life, such as the time the specimen was dropped off, the facility it came from and the temperature at which it arrived.

The main goal for Amelia’s team is to process and investigate samples in a timely and accurate manner as the results are very time-sensitive. “Things can progress very quickly, so depending on the results, if we draw it in the morning and we turn the results in by the afternoon, the doctor is able to make a decision,” Amelia points out. These needs were especially elevated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, when long-term care facilities were some of the nation’s hot spots for the spread of the disease.

“There’s tons of respiratory viruses out there, all of which are different from COVID, but many of them have very similar sort of symptoms, so being able to tell the difference quickly is important,” says Amelia.

Watch the full interview with Amelia to learn more about the work that happens behind-the-scenes at American Health Associates.

Caring for patients is the family business for Stephanie Peterson, an operational technical specialist for Mayo Clinic Laboratories’ Hepatitis/HIV Molecular Lab. Stephanie’s father was a personal trainer and her mother served on the frontlines as a nurse. From an early age, Stephanie developed a passion for health that only grew when she joined her mother for Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day and saw patient care firsthand.

“Seeing all the different tools that they [health care workers] would use — that made me really curious about the hospital, and then later on, the lab,” recalls Stephanie.

In Mayo’s Hepatitis/HIV Molecular Lab, Stephanie focuses on assessing transplant assays, or helping patients receive the organ transplants they need in a safe and timely manner. “It’s oftentimes people who have been waiting on a list for weeks, months on end, and they have a phone call that they receive,” says Stephanie. “And they have X amount of hours to be able to get that organ transplanted, to be present where it is and get that testing done to make sure that before this organ ever touches that body, all the necessary tests are taken and made to make it to them.”

Throughout a given day, Stephanie helps her team by ensuring that laboratory workflows run smoothly. She provides insights from her previous laboratory experiences and works to identify new, innovative ways to help her fellow technicians at Mayo perform their roles with greater ease. That can include finding ergonomic techniques for lab technicians to physically do their work, or making sure they have the resources they need to get the job done.

Stephanie and her team’s commitment to the job translates to an even greater commitment to patients. “No matter if you’re just test-tube number one or test-tube number 201, we’re going to treat you with the utmost care, making sure that we’re checking all items,” she explains.

Communication is key to bringing it all together to best serve patients, says Stephanie, who emphasized the focus on teamwork in everything the lab does. “Coming to Mayo, I feel I know that each time I’m doing my job, I’m not only helping myself, I’m helping those patients,” she shares.

Watch the video below to learn more about the critical contributions that lab professionals like Stephanie provide each and every day.