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I have even gone so far as to tell the nurse taking care of the patient that when they learned the patient's name and not the room number to give me a call back and we will discuss the patient at that time.

We all have these transfusion event stories. Rec'd a phone call in the middle of the night years ago. 3 out of 4 units were transfused to the incorrect patient. Fortunately both pts were O Pos. We used Typenex numbers. BB tech switched the 2 patients; could only be resolved at the bedside. 2u transfused in dialysis. When asked about the "red" numbers I was told that they no longer checked them as they always matched. I informed them that they gave 2u the day before to the incorrect patient.

I had always found it difficult to convince nurses that we were working with a person/patient and not a room/bed! This became even more difficult after all the privacy rules and regulations came about. It was almost as if they were terrified to say a patient's name aloud!