J Schuler

Ortho customer service seems to be going downhill. I have called customer service with reagent problems, and they treat you like you are clueless. When there is a problem, you get no feedback. I have had 3 different Ortho Reps in the last 2-1/2 years. Before AABB, I had to call Customer Service to even find out who my rep was. At AABB, I walked through the Ortho booth, stopped to look at something, stood around and nobody approached me. I was shocked especially since a bunch of the reps were standing around and talking to each other! What happened to them attacking you as soon as you set foot in the booth?

Thank you - All of You - for your replies. You make me feel better and hopefully I will be able to make the best possible decision for us! Jen

We are a small transfusion service that transfuses ~200 products a month. Needless to say, almost all of my staff are generalists. I am looking at automation due to staff shortages which seems to be never ending especially in Alaska. I know the generalists will be fine with instrumentation in general. I have looked at both the Provue and Galileo. In the last couple of years I have been very disappointed in Ortho's reagents and customer service (we currently use gel for antibody screens and panels). However, I am very hesitant to purchase the Echo because of the massive change in reading antibody screens (4+ in Capture looks negative by traditional methods). Does anyone have any success or failure stories with the generalists and reading Capture? I appreciate any input you are able to give. Thanks.

Sorry - we only read with oil. Definitely not my favorite test!

I was looking at possibly going to automation in the next year or so before the price increases. Anyway, I was looking at the Market Prices for both Ortho and Immucor traditional reagents using their new prices. When I figured out the prices by the bottle or mL - wouldn't you know it - most of the reagents from both companies cost exactly the same! I guess it comes down to which company you prefer. It is still a shame that those of us who are not able to go to instrumentation or do not want to are up a creek.

I was wondering what policy everyone has when a patient has a name longer than the LIS/labels tolerate? For example, we had a patient whose name was longer than 23 characters. The printer tries to print as much of the name as possible. Once the name is longer, it goes into a different field and writes over the other information or is cut off the label rather than automatically truncating it. How do you handle this when hand labeling the blood bank specimen, and the patient is unable to confirm the spelling of his or her name? How do you handle this when the name is cut off after a certain point on your transfusion tag? Some at our facility do not see this as a major issue; however, I feel stronger. I guess I am just a Blood Banker at heart and expect perfection. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Jen

We are in the process of building Cerner Millennium Blood Bank. We noticed that emergency unit tags cannot be printed until after you dispense the unit. Currently, we have nursing staff who pick up the units read back to us prior to accepting the dispense in the computer. Does anyone have a good work around for this? We want consistency between regular issues and emergency release. Thanks

We were seeing occasional reaction in screen cell 2. Now we are seeing it in screen cell 1. Has anyone been having problems with this cell now?

I have worked at a couple large facilities with very different policies on transfusing Rh positive blood to Rh negative patients. One facility routinely gave Rh positive blood to Rh negative females not of child bearing age and of course, males. The other gave Rh positive only when a minimum level of Rh negative blood was available. The facility I work at now basically will never give Rh postive to Rh negative individuals even in a crunch. If they have to it seems it is only approved for traumas. I am looking for some real life experiences as far as how many patients really do develop anti-D. The texts all seem to say the percentage is pretty high. I would also like to find out what different facilities policies are on this subject. Thanks for your help.

I listened to a CAP teleconference today talking about the new CAP question. They said "your plan" may turn into mandatory in about 18 months. Who has/is allowed that much time to get the rest of the hospital to buy into some potentially very high cost products?

I interpreted the new CAP standard to mean that you are currently evaluating/planning other systems to aid in patient id for the future. Such as the bar coded patient id systems that are out.

I have worked at 2 hospitals >500 beds. At both places, we performed immediate spin crossmatches for patients that had a previous antibody of undetermined specificity that is NOT currently reacting. What do you do in this situation? I have a tech who is questioning this protocol and would like any information you may have to offer her in explanation. There really is nothing I can find in the Technical Manual that addresses this. Thanks, Jen