During an emergency transfusion,our Hospital policy has been to begin the first round of PRBC's with O Negative, and then to switch to type specific (when the type is known) or otherwise give O Positive if the patient is a Male or a female not of child bearing age.
Recently, due to shortage of O Neg, there has been a suggestion to initiate the first transfusion with O Positive and not bother with O Neg as long as the patient is a male (or female over 50).
For those of you who already have adopted a similar policy, have you encountered any problems after the fact, with the patient being readmitted somewhere and showing an RH positive blood type when really that patient could be RH negative? Do you issue cards to inform the patient of the possible change in blood type, at least for a few weeks after the initial transfusion?
Any suggestions on how we should go about this?