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I am retiring August 6th after 41 years of being a Medical Technologist. I have enjoy reading most of the posts and learning about what goes on at other sites. But now it time for not waiting up at zero dark thirty unless I want to, no middle of the night phone calls, none stop training and trouble shooting that random BB error(LOLs). More time for the things I enjoy; kayaking, wine tasting, hiking, traveling, and cheering on my soccer team(go Timbers)

Quality in the Blood Transfusion Laboratory is key in all things. The wrong can, and does kill. If there is an expiry date on the EDTA tubes, it must be there for a reason. I am not an expert on how this date is established, but I would suggest that someone within the manufacturing company is, and it is they who have established the date. Were I inspecting the laboratory and saw that expired tubes were being accepted, whatever the excuse put forward, it would be an immediate non-conformance.

When blood bank is called to release uncrossmatched blood, we specifically ask who the ordering physician is. The blood banker then places an order in EPIC called "Release of Uncrossmatched Blood" which is the statement (taken from AABB Standards) about the situation being critical enough to warrant the release of blood before compatibility testing is completed. This order must be electronically co-signed in EPIC by the physician that we name as the ordering physician. We have EPIC and WellSky (Mediware HCLL), but it shouldn't matter what blood bank computer system you have since this is all done (ordered/cosigned) in EPIC. I'm attaching our uncrossmatched worksheet that includes the instructions that we follow to place this order in EPIC and assign it to the ordering physician for co-sign. I check each day to make sure it gets co-signed. Once signed, I print the order with the co-sign tracking information, attach it to our worksheet, and file the paperwork for easy retrieval during future inspections/assessments. TO-381F01 Release of Uncrossmatched Blood.docx