Leaderboard

If this is such a rare happening my suggestion is, if it ever does happen, simply do the best you can with what you have. If you come up with some procedure then you will have to review and train with it on a regular basis and I would suggest that once per year is not enough. Bottom line, you cannot prepare for every eventuality your fertile mind can come up with. The key in the rare circumstances is to not panic or get bullied into doing something you know is not correct. You can drive yourself crazy with all the "what ifs". I am all for preparation but it must be reasonable and realistic.

The people you mentioned are RNs and MD (Heme/Onc specialty) and do not have a Transfusion Service background although the are very good at asking questions of the Transfusion Service. They are currently working on getting AABB Certification for the Blood Management program so they have LOTS of questions. The Transfusion Service Medical Director, Supervisor and the Lead Technologist are all part of the Blood Management Committee. All policies and procedures that involve ordering, handling, and transfusion of blood/blood components are reviewed by the Transfusion Service. We also give input and review RN and MD training materials. We provide statistical information and are also involved in recommending/reviewing/testing of updates/upgrades for the HIS (Epic) which utilizes BPAM for transfusion documentation. And of course we attend all of the Blood Management meetings and they attend all of our Transfusion Service meetings so everyone stays on the same page. All in all it is a great collaboration between our 2 groups. We just had our CAP inspection in September and our inspector was very complimentary with our program.

I would think that the freshest irradiated or unirradiated unit you have on hand would be suitable for a baby in a true emergency. A full unit could be issued and tranfusionist would use what they needed and discard. This plan should be discussed with all involved before it happens to make sure everyone is OK with this. Perhaps a procedure should be written as well.