Kent

Does your lab's infection control policy allow handling of blood products without gloves? How about separating segments with scissors without gloves? Does your policy allow some tasks to be done with gloves and some without gloves in the same area? For example, can you do an electronic crossmatch with no gloves at the same workstation as a serologic crossmatch with gloves?

We report the "A2" patient as "A". Usually the anti-A1 in these patients does not react at 37 C. We only apply the restriction of group "O" transfusions to those few patients that do show reactivity at 37.

We use a IEC (now Thermo Electron) GP8 table top centrifuge. It works well although the caps for the centrifuge cups have clips that are inconvenient. We also try to discourage the use of volume reduced platelets. Platelet concentrates are already concentrated! Further concentration is likely to lead to clumping and decreased effectiveness of the transfused platelets. Most of the neonatal platelet transfusions in our institution are not volume reduced. The exception is for ECMO patients who need a rapid infusion of platelets and cannot tolerate any extra volume.

We're another Mediware Lifeline user that is moving to Mediware HCLL and Lifetrack.

The blood bank handles all of these products

Does anybody have a serofuge that they really like? If so, what model and what do you like or not like about it?

Is anyone using a pH meter for testing platelets for bacterial contamination? If so, what meter / electrode are you using and do you recommend it? What cutoff level are you using or planning to use?