Phlebotomist Employment Demand
Are you looking for a career with potential and not just a job? As the economy picks up, Phlebotomist Employment Demand is going to increase along with all other jobs in the medical field. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, Phlebotomist Employment Demand from 2008 to 2018 will increase 12-16%, or by approximately 20,000 to 45,000 jobs. Job openings are expected to exceed the number of jobseekers.
What is a Phlebotomist? A Phlebotomist is a medical technician who takes blood samples from patients for testing according to doctor orders. Most employers generally wish the Phlebotomist to have certification from some training facility, but as certification is simply optional and not mandatory as in the case of “licensing”, some employers may choose to hire non-certified but experienced phlebotomists. Where is the Phlebotomist Employment Demand the highest? The highest Phlebotomist Employment Demand will be in hospital laboratories, where they generally employ a large number of Phlebotomists for each shift, that are there to draw blood for stat orders, now orders and routine lab order twenty-four hours a day. Another medical setting that has a high Phlebotomist Employment Demand are freestanding plasma donation centers (the ones that pay clients to come donate plasma) and the demand for them here in these centers is outrageously high. This is the type of place in which you do not have to be certified, but they can train you to do the job. They will generally start with fingersticks, and work you up to operating the machines, and then lastly venipuncture, they have their own certification process. Another similar setting which has a demand for phlebotomists is blood and tissue donation centers, in which whole blood is donated voluntarily, not paid for by the company. The demand for phlebotomists is also very high here as well, and they also have their own certification process, so school is not necessary to become a phlebotomist here at these places.
Phlebotomist Employment Demand: Location
Hospital laboratories that have the highest phlebotomist employment demand also want experience. If you have none you will want to consider going through a certification course that generally takes a minimum of nine months. Yet another medical setting in which phlebotomists are in high demand are freestanding laboratories. There are several opportunities for work here. Examples of these are: LabCorp, Physician Reference Labs, and Quest Diagnostics. These labs can put a phlebotomist to work in a variety of settings also, such as in a clinic or doctor office, waiting to draw blood on patients who get doctor orders for tests. Some freestanding labs also have public draw stations all over the city they are located in, so that a phlebotomist stays there and collects lab specimens on patients who walk in with laboratory test orders. The third setting that freestanding labs have a need for phlebotomists is in the field as a mobile phlebotomist. These facilities generally have contracts with long-term care facilities, who call the laboratory with test orders from the doctor, and the laboratory sends out a mobile phlebotomist to the facility to make draw blood from all the patients that tests have been ordered on. The mobile phlebotromist can sometimes be assigned to collect from multiple facilities each day, and may sometimes have to be “on-call” during non-business hours in order to collect emergency specimens on any tests the doctor orders as “stat”. There are many different work settings and job opportunities for a phlebotomist today and the employment demand at any and each of these places is simply expected to grow so if you are considering an exciting new career, this might be the ideal one for you.
