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April 2024 Challenge

TMGal

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Everything posted by TMGal

  1. TMGal
    Happy 2024! In our large tertiary care hospital, we require all requests for blood components/products to be faxed to the blood bank to ensure accuracy of information. However, we recently had an incident where the fax was not being received which delayed the issuing of the blood in an emergent situation. How many of you accept verbal orders for blood components/products? Would you accept verbal orders for emergency blood only? If so, do you have a specific form that is filled out at the time of the request?
  2. TMGal
    Need your advice...we currently require a 2-person check for infusion of plasma protein product. Is this necessary? A 2-person check is required in our standards for blood and blood components so was this simply extended to PPP or is there documentation somewhere that says we can perform a 1-person check?
  3. TMGal
    Thank you all for the feedback. This site does not have porters - the nurses typically come to the blood bank to pick up blood. We do have staff on-call, but the ED is not willing to wait the 20 minutes it may take for lab staff to be on-site - which can be an eternity if the patient is actively bleeding...we will be moving to smart fridges but that is still a couple of years away...
  4. TMGal
    I have a site where the lab is not staffed 24/7 but they do retain emergency units in the blood bank fridge. The units have a red tag and are stored on a shelf labelled "emergency units". We have provided training for nurses on how to access and sign out the units but it is becoming a challenge to maintain this due to staffing (clinical and lab). We need to allow nursing to come in and retrieve emergency units after hours. Does anyone else have this type of situation? Our current training is proving to be unmanageable due to the change over in nursing staff and Agency nurses. Sometimes I think we make it harder than it has to be - thoughts?
  5. TMGal
    We would be referring to a 3rd party vendor outside of the hospital - the current situation is the equipment is set to remotely alarm by the nursing desk and they complain about the alarms going off and it makes it difficult for lab staff to perform quarterly alarm checks. The lab is staffed 24/7 so if the equipment alarms in the lab, it would be heard and attended to.
  6. TMGal
    According to CAP TRM.42750, component storage units with an alarm are monitored 24 hours/day either in the lab or remote. My question to the group is, would a 3rd party outside of the lab be considered remote? I interpret this to mean it does; however, I would like to hear from others. Thanks...
  7. TMGal
    Great feedback. Thank you.
  8. TMGal
    We are looking to purchase testing equipment for our blood banks and will need a mix of fully and semi-automated based on site volume. Looking for feedback from folks on BioRad (IH500 and Saxo Reader), Grifols (Erytra) , Ortho (Vision and workstation) and Immucor (Echo Lumina). We also want middleware for both fully and semi-automated systems. Why did you choose the platform you did? Any regrets? Any happy surprises?
  9. TMGal
    Could someone in Canada provide me with a contact for Haemonetics? We had been working with the sales rep in Ontario who, sadly, is no longer available. I have called the number provided on their website for the Alberta Head Office numerous times and left messages as no one ever answers and no one has returned my calls. Additionally, I sent an email request via their website and still no response. Now, either they don't want to work with us and are deliberately not returning my calls or they don't want our money....additionally, do I want to work with a company I can never get ahold of....? My understanding is they are still the only vendor able to offer vending blood fridges so if anyone is aware of an alternative vendor, please let me know. Otherwise, if you know of a rep for Haemonetics, please forward me their contact info. thanks........
  10. TMGal
    Good point. Thanks, Scott.
  11. TMGal
    Good morning! We have a TM LIS in which technologists are to direct enter their manual testing results. While I appreciate the intent is to decrease the risk of transcription errors, I am also old school enough to want to write down my results on the worksheet first.... Looking for insight/thoughts/comments from the TM community on performing direct entry into an LIS of ABO/Rh and screen testing results....thanks......
  12. TMGal
    I appreciate in a perfect world the error rate would be zero; however, this is not feasible as humans are entering data and humans will make mistakes. I am not looking for someone to tell me my error rate is OK because it compares to someone else - I am looking for some benchmarks. For example, if I am at an error rate of 6% and folks in similar sized facilities accessioning similar numbers are around 3% then I know I need to seriously look into our processes and can work towards that goal. If I happen to be around the same error rate as other comparable sites then I will not expect to see as large a decrease in the error rate but will continue to ensure it trends downward. thanks for the discussion...
  13. TMGal
    Thank you for the replies. Very helpful!
  14. TMGal
    Hi Everyone. I have two questions today: 1. If you have a plasma thawer on site, what do you use as a back up? I have a site with a plasma thawer but nothing for back up - no second plasma thawer and no waterbath.....is AABB OK with a warm basin? Thoughts? 2. If you thaw apheresis plasma, how long does it take? Our policy states it should thaw within 30' but I am told this isn't long enough.....? Thanks...........
  15. TMGal
    For your A-ive donor with the screen positive in gel and negative in tube, is there a pattern in the antigram? Gel is much more sensitive to Rh antibodies than tube. You said the patient is male so unlikely they received RhIg. If results repeat in gel, I would suggest Rh phenotyping the donor for c, e status.
  16. TMGal
    Thanks to all for your responses. There are some very interesting ideas here in which we can draw from.
  17. TMGal
    We are evaluating data loggers for our hospitals. We use them when sending red cells from a regional site to a smaller rural site which may take a couple of hours in travel. We trialed zLogg, Libero (Elpro) and TempTale Ultra. Does anyone have experience with any of these data loggers you would be willing to share? Almost all of the new data loggers do not allow you to change the battery so a replacement must be purchased when the battery dies.... thanks.....
  18. TMGal
    Thanks - I have looked on-line extensively and have not found any literature with an "established" error rate which we could compare to. We are monitoring our rates monthly but it would be nice to know if anyone else has done this and if there is a ball park error rate we could compare ourselves to rather than a full blown six sigma study....
  19. TMGal
    All of our TM samples are manually entered into our LIS with ~9,000 samples accessioned monthly. We do capture pre-analytical errors pertaining to the data entry (eg. mis-spelled names, wrong DOB, wrong test selected, etc.). We have been keeping track of our pre-analytical data entry errors in conjunction with the number of samples registered but I am unable to find any literature to compare it to....? Is anyone aware of any published data regarding "acceptable" lab data entry error rates? Thanks and Happy Easter!
  20. TMGal
    Thank you all for your comments. We do have a system in place for our cancer patients and PAC-OR folks which includes arm-banding. From what I am hearing, any patient considered an "out-patient" (ie. cancer, pre-admit, dialysis) who comes into a hospital and has a T&S drawn would then require some sort of arm-banding or alternative ID process if they were to leave the hospital then come back later in the day or the next day for a transfusion. Correct?
  21. TMGal
    Hi Everyone, Does your facility/region allow for a patient to have their blood sample drawn for a T&S at Facility A and their transfusion given at Facility B? If so, how do you ensure the patient who had their blood drawn at Facility A is the same patient that shows up at Facility B for their transfusion? When I use the example of Facility A and B, they represent separate hospitals within a city; however, the labs are all under one institution and all follow the same P&Ps. thanks.......
  22. TMGal
    How do those of you in larger acute hospitals receive orders for emergency blood? Does the ward fax a request for blood or do you allow the ward to call the blood bank for emergency units? If you allow the wards to call in their requests for emergency blood, how do you ensure that not every order becomes "stat". Does the blood bank staff ever feel overwhelmed with calls?
  23. TMGal
    Thank you, everyone, for your feedback. Much appreciated!
  24. TMGal
    Is anyone using stick-on temperature indicators for their RBC units? If so, what are your thoughts? I saw a vendor at AABB this year who was selling them and now can't remember who it was....
  25. TMGal
    Can anyone share with me what the life expectancy is for an Immucor Echo?
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