Cliff

Hi Kim, I think this is tough for anyone to answer for you. Is this a new blood bank system, or a computer you are using for a function - such as something you might be tracking? If you are talking about a vendor supplied blood bank system, then you might want to ask them for suggestions. Also, there are companies that perform validations of blood bank systems, you might want to look for one of them. I know there is at least one that consistently goes to the annual aaBB meeting. Provide some more info and I'll try to help some more.

Currently we track the following for our plateletpheresis donors: RBC loss for prior 56 days RBC loss for prior 365 days Plasma loss for current donation Plasma loss for prior 365 days. We are considering dropping the RBC loss for the prior 56 days and switching that to RBC loss for current donation. Is anyone else tracking the RBC loss for the prior 56 days?

Hi Terry, We too had narrowed it down to Mediware and Wyndgate. Ultimately we selected Mediware. We begin Super USer training next Monday! While we found both products to be very good, there were a few small things that made us lean toward Mediware. They have a terrific report prebuilt for their inventory. Wyndgate said they'd make one just like it. Mediware also has a lot of prebuilt reports, Wyndgate said we could easily build them using Crystal Reports. While that may or not may be true, I like the idea of the reports being prebuilt. THe one site survey we did for Wyndgate was not impressive. The end users seemed very unsure of how the system worked and that made us very uncomfortable.

Hmm, what qualifies one as an old blood banker? :wink: Honestly, I am not too keen on the idea myself, and unless I can find a compelling reason not to do this, I'm afraid I will need to agree to it.

We are in the process of implementing a new computer. We are just starting this exciting year-long project. :roll: One of the decisions we need to make is related to specimens. Currently our specimens come to us with the patients name, medical record number, the date collected and an identifier of the phlebotomist. It is a fairly large label. We are a very large institution and don't have any control of changing that process. We also have an Immucor Rosys. We'd like our specimens to be barcoded so they can be processed on the Rosys. One option we are considering is when we log the sample into the blood bank we will print a new label that has all of the information from the original label, with the addition of a barcode that can be read by the Rosys. This new label would likely conceal most of the information on the original label. Is anyone aware if this is prohibited by anyone - excluding CAP we are not CAP inspected. Thanks.

What identifiers do you require of your donors? We have two centers, at one almost all of the donors will give their SS#, at the other almost none will. It is in our SOPs that we "prefer" the SS# as a form of identification, but we will allow the DOB as the second form of ID. Does anyone require a SS#?

Your link worked, it just had a period at the end, I edited it. I heard this a few years ago, interesting thought, still sounds controversial. I don't think I would advertise it.

Laura, feel free to attach it to a post here. That way it will be available to all.

It should be an indicator of topics you have posted in.

Being a larger facility, 100+ employees, even we don't have pockets deep enough to send all of our staff off-site for CE. What we do have though is many in house opportunities. We have always had a CE requirement for our staff, I am not aware of what ASCP requires. We allow things as simple as reading newsletters, we subscribe to ABC Newsletter, AABB Weekly and Citings. As for AABB, we send about 10, but it's all management staff.

We are rather large 700+, and only do a retrospective audit. Our current LIS, homegrown, does not support prospective auditing. We hope our new system, Mediware, will be able to do this. We will have it implemented by next September and are working with Mediware to tie to our LIS and possibly do prospective auditing. Good luck.

My apologies. In setting up this new version of the forum, I forget to reset the allowed document type. Would you mind trying again? it should allow .dot and .doc file types now.

Hi John, Would you be willing to share those? Word docs and pdf files can be attached to posts here.

Hi Jane, We have two tube systems. They grow all the time here. Our Pevco system works OK for some of the smaller routs, but can't handle the loads of our main system. Our main system is from TransLogic. It is fantastic. Our facility is 16 stories and some parts are over 1/4 mile away too. It has the ability to pull at least three units to either of those locations. As for issuing (signout) we simply indicate "T" for tube for the transporter. The validation was a bit tougher. Like most validations we created it on our own. We measured: Trip time Product temp Cannister Temp (using a TempTale) Weight of products. We did 20 runs with an empty cannister, 20 with multiple cold products and 20 with multiple RT products. We set what we felt were acceptable limits. There are many stations here, we don't approve all of them for blood products at this point. In our EW, they are extremely large so we have a remote alarm system to alert them that blood has arrived. For another high use floor, they need to enter an access code to remove the cannister. They can't shut off the alarm or use the tube system until they do. Let me know if you have any other questions, I'll be glad to help.

Jeanette, That is a great site, thanks for posting it!!

Hi ljw, One thing that would be great is if it could be a module to install into other systems. I had seen prototype of Talisman many years ago and found it disappointing, but promising. The version I saw did not make the "decision" of donor acceptability. I suppose that way you avoid the 510k mess. Either way good luck.

I agree that SOP sharing is a great idea, unfortunately I don't have one to share. I wanted to mention that documents can be attached to the posting. That way everyone can download it.

We collect pre-admission samples from our autologous donors. We will be stopping this soon as it is not the business of the donor center to collect patient samples. I had a question though. Some of these patients / donors have a significant amount collected for their samples. We deduct this amount from the WB we collect to ensure patient safety. Recently we had a talk about this. Do other people worry about what their donors may have or will have collected on the day of donation as patient samples? If so, how do you manage this? Thanks.

I was wondering what others are doing for scale QC. OK, balance QC, not donor scales. Currently we do fours weights each day on each scale, regardless if it is used: 20g 100g 200g 500g One of the supervisors here proposed that we do these plus an additional 1000g weight for Monthly QC only and check only 1 weight per day on each scale. What are others doing? Thanks.

conwaysbb, I'd be happy to share but... Ours is very specific to our computer entered deferrals, and we currently have 1 SOP for each test. We are in the process of rewriting all of them into one comprehensive SOP. So while you reinvent one wheel, we'll be busy working on the other. 8)

Hi mfleach and welcome to the Donor Limits Forums. Sheesh, I got tired just reading about all you have done! How big is Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center? I am surprised you are going with a home-grown system still. Have you had concerns from FDA about it? We currently have a home grown, been using it for 20+ years. We are moving to a new system some time this year - or at least installing, then there is the obligatory 1+ year validation.

Hi diloro and welcome to the Donor Limits forums! I am part of a large facility, and we have close relationships with the stem cell and gene manipulation lab. One of our donors centers also collects PBPC. Feel free to post your questions, If I don't have the answers (and I probably won't :roll: ) then I'll contact some coworkers and have them post too.

Thanks for the suggestion Jane. I added a new section called Regulatory issues.

Hi Christine, I've never used them, but their site is neat. http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/merchandise.aspx

You can do that with this forum too. Make sure you are logged in. From any forum page look toward the top. You'll see a link "New Posts". Click that.