Reducing neonatal phlebotomy blood losses through the accurate calculation of minimum test volume requirements.

This tool allows neonatal intensive care unit staff to objectively determine the minimum blood volume required for a combination of tests and is generalizable between laboratory instruments. Compared with the hospital information system, use of the minimum blood volume clinical decision support tool could maximally reduce the volume of blood collected from this neonatal unit by more than a half. Neonatal intensive care unit staff had apparently already gone some way to determining their own minimum volumes required.