The industry's most popular venipuncture training video is now streaming on The Phlebotomy Channel. 

The first edition of Basic Venipuncture was released 2004 and instantly became the gold standard for venipuncture training in facilities and academic programs around the globe. Since it's debut, it's been viewed by hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals and students learning the most commonly performed invasive medical procedure in healthcare. The third edition, released in July, updates the popular video with the newly revised venipuncture standard published last year by CLSI, and took 18 months to produce.

"Phlebotomy is a highly detailed procedure," says Dennis J. Ernst MT(ASCP) NCPT(NCCT) who wrote, directed, and produced the video. "To reach perfection, we held seven filming sessions, revised the script 15 times, had 13 rounds of post-production edits, recruited eight actors and spent hundreds of hours of preparation, execution, direction, and footage review."

Ernst provides script assistance
to narrator Angie Glotzbach.

Features of the 3rd edition include:

• Completely updated to reflect the newly revised CLSI venipuncture standard;
• Completely new script, narrator, and organization of the material;
• Filmed in high-definition;
• 12-minutes longer than the 2nd edition;
• Closed captioned by the National Captioning Institute.

Currently, Basic Venipuncture's 3rd Edition is only accessible to Phlebotomy Channel Subscribers. In addition to Basic Venipuncture, the Phlebotomy Channel hosts a library of 16 other titles on a wide variety of blood collection topics. Most are full-length features ranging from 29- to 52-minutes, but several compelling short clips are also accessible.

"In the healthcare industry, VHS tapes gave way to DVDs 15 years ago," says Ernst. "Now we're seeing a dramatic shift toward streaming as DVDs are becoming more and more obsolete." According to Ernst, Basic Venipuncture, 3rd edition will still be released on DVD but in limited quantities. He expects them to be available later this month or early October.