F Kloren

Hi David, Here in SA all the test are performed centrally at the blood bank and none at the hospitals, the results are guaranteed by the blood bank.

In South Africa it is legislated that the ABO/Rh be confirmed on the segment from the pack before transfusion. When the blood bank changed to an automated crossmatch method, segment testing remained manual due to the cost of automated grouping. The cost of testing the ABO/Rh on the Olympus PK7300 proved to be significantly lower than other methods like Autovue etc. While there were substantial benefits new problems emerged. The tediousness of the task of cutting the segments manually to decant the blood into the test tubes (800-1000 per staff member), as well as manually comparing the bar-code numbers. We have now developed an automated segment cutter. The segment cutter prints the bar-code on the test tube, cuts the segments, decants the blood and adds saline. The racks with test tubes can now be placed directly onto the Olympus for analyzing. The decanter can process up to 300 segments per hour and sends the information to the LIS. Now my questions are the following: • Are the cross matching processes the same globally, i.e. cross match on segment not on specimen? • How common is it that the blood banks do all testing in bulk and send final product to hospital? I apologize in advance if I have some of the terminology wrong. I designed the machine and my blood testing knowledge is limited. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.