Hi everyone, I'm new to the group and excited to be here. I work at the community blood center in Austin, TX. I am working with trauma hospitals, EMS and air transport facilities to develop a pre-hospital whole blood transfusion program in our area. EMS and air transport facilities will use coolers to store blood for a week. They will then return any unused WB to the blood center and we will redistribute the products to trauma hospitals. We will require storage temp of 1-6 for EMS/air transport agencies keeping WB. The coolers they are working on validating are the Pelican Credo ProMed series that hold temp really well (<6 for up to 3 days). For added assurance, our team would like to use temperature indicators on the WB bags. We tested Safe T Vue 6 indicators and found that the color change happened quickly and easily if you accidently touch them while placing them on or handling the products. We weren't impressed with the color change either in that they turned pink (not red). We feel like we would have to discard a lot of units using these indicators and we've heard this was the case with other organizations who have used them.
We are looking into the Blood Temp 6 indicators by Timestrip https://timestrip.com/products/blood-temp-6/ and I'm interested to know if anyone has experience with these that they could share. Also interested in any other ideas for 1-6 degree temp monitoring outside of the blood bank. Thanks in advance for your help!