DEDE

I am going to implement a procedure for a 2nd sample in blood bank for all patients that do not have a historical blood types on file. We use the blood bank armband as our 2nd identifier and perform re-checks on ones that have no historical type. I am not comfortable with this process any longer because we no longer have control over phlebotomy and I am seeing a trend in misidentified specimens. Would anyone be willing to share their procedure with me? I hate to re-invent the wheel, Thank you in advance Delisa

I am trying to find out what everyone uses for their QC on the Gel Card antibody screens. We do not use a kit. In the past we used dilute Anti-D and Dilute Anti-c. I have taken over the manager position and was reviewing the procedures and noticed a notation in the QC procedure stating to never use Rh anti-sera for control purposes for Gel cards. They switched to Jka and Jkb which can be a little wonky at times and also expensive. I can't find anything anywhere that mentions not using the RH sera. I may have missed something in my absence but would like to switch back until we get our automation in place. Thanks in advance for your responses

We have thought about that. We use a lot of Liquid plasma at the beginning until we get caught up on thawing plasma so it is usually cool or cold by the time it gets in the cooler.

We are also looking at a new cooler system. This does sound promising. Does anyone know what the largest size is? Our MTP cycles require 6 RBC and 6 FFP. We place these in the same cooler. Our trauma team requested we do this rather than using 2 coolers. We use Rubbermaid and Credo. The only issue with Credo is the time for conditioning the cool packs. We are a level one trauma center with 6 helicopters , so time is not on our side. We only allow the coolers to remain out for 4 hours because of the AABB standard (5.1.8.1.3.1) that temp shall be monitored continuously and recorded every 4 hours. If you consider your coolers as transport I guess they would qualify based on your validation. And on that note how do most of you classify your coolers (storage or transport)? Our last inspection we had to tell the inspector how we classified. I know the temp range is also different (1-6 storage and 1-10 for transport).

I was just tasked with adding anion gap to our panels. I know there are a couple of calculations and wanted to know is one calculation better than the other? Na-CL-HC03= anion gap or Na +K - CL- HCO3= anion gap. I know that the reference ranges will be a little different between the 2 calculations, also are there any correction factors based on the albumin or phosphate results? Or is it just up to the physicians on which on to use and add a notation to the results about the impact that a low albumin could have on the results? Thanks

Do any or all of you require a patient ID form for emergency released blood. We are having an issue with staff from the floors showing up and requesting "red tag" blood and without the ID form we have no idea where or who may be receiving the products?? Delisa