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Platelets are in adequate supply largely due to hospitals (in my service area) enforcing restrictive transfusion measures and postponing elective surgeries. Most blood centers except in New York, Washington state, and California are treading water with respect to RBCs. As usual Rh neg units are in short supply. Most of the hospitals in my service area are also freeing up beds to treat respiratory infections. These will require fewer transfusions, although patients needing ECMO are of concern. Looking ahead, it is difficult to predict what will happen. This is a long term event. My current concern is that blood donors will be fatigued 3 weeks from now and avoid giving blood. That is what happened after 9/11. It could be that you might need that unit of O neg on your shelf 42 days from now. In my opinion the goal is to provide blood for everyone who needs blood. Measures to restrict are prudent (and the literature indicates this is good medicine). After this is all over and we are criticized for being too conservative, but no one died for lack of blood, I can live with that.

From the management side; involve the tech. Meet with them and have a conversation about how/why the think the error occurred.. Make them feel involved in QA and PI by asking if they have any suggestions that may prevent a recurrence. Front line staff often have great PI ideas, but won't speak up. During the conversation you will also be able to get a good feel for whether the tech knows the procedure and is committed to following processes as written, needs some re-training or whether they purposely deviated because the had "a better way".

ARC (American Red Cross) has issued a statement that almost 5,000 blood drives were canceled and a few hundred donation sites due to quarantines. They're trying to get people to start donating at hospitals and other "essential" sites. The physicians have ramped up elective surgery instead of delaying them. I think it's super selfish to waste blood products during a crisis of this nature when you don't know what the outcome will be or how long the quarantines will last, it's beyond frustrating.