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I think these bureaucratic methods corrode the trust and collegiality felt by our bedside practice colleagues. High risk patients require discussion between the medical staff of the transfusion service and the ordering provider, and a note in the medical record documenting the decision making. Signing forms is a another tip of the hat to bureaucracy and legalese that should have no role in the provision of medical care. A joint responsibility for such decisions and documentation is far more humane and in the interests of good patient care. Neither the FDA nor regulatory agencies require such divisive practices and we should abandon them for better patient care and documentation of shared decision making. I realize some of you do not have knowledgeable and enthusiastic physician support, but this responsibility needs to be taken by the transfusion service medical director, who is paid to do so, however reluctant and happy to dump this on medical technologists. Just saying.

Until we have two blood types( original and confirm) O positive blood is issued for Men 18 yrs old or greater and females 50 yrs old or greater.

Yes, we do that here.

One thing I would add to Dansket's post is that the standard says group O, it does not say O Neg. If your specimen types Rh Positive, you may, according to the standard, switch to O Pos and save your O Neg inventory for actual Rh Negative patients.