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Could it also be that because the baby has been delivered that the Anti-D crossed the placenta and has coated the baby's RBCs? This might cause a decrease in reactions if there is not the same amount of antibody to detect?!?

Hello everyone, My hospital is currently looking into getting a BioFridge refrigerator on wheels for our MTPs. I was wondering if anyone out there used one of these products and, if so, what if any validations did you have to do for it. I am not familiar with it, but have been told that is can hold thawed ffp and rbcs in separate areas of the refrigerator. They are also supposed to maintain their temperature for up to 18 hours before needing to be plugged back in to an electrical outlet. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Tammy

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Yes, we issue blood on ice in a cooler to the ORs and CVORs. BPAM allows them more time than issuing to any other unit.

It might be the way ours is built because ours is set up per our hospital policy.

They are not able to start it. Hospital policy says the unit must be spiked within 30 minutes of issue or it is to be returned to blood bank.

It is a problem for us because we use the Blood Product Administration Module of Epic EHR and it only allows them 30 minutes to start transfusing the blood.

We have long had the practice of when a blood product has been issued to a hospital unit but because of patient conditions has to be transferred to another unit, that the blood product must be returned to the lab and after the patient is settled in and the second hospital unit is ready to transfuse the blood product that they send us a request for it. Is this a requirement of AABB, CAP, TJC or FDA? Or is it just a practice at our hospital. We have a new Lab Manager who says it is not a regulatory requirement but we want to make sure of that and don't know how to find out. Thanks for your help!

At work, we have had discussions as to whether CAP/AABB requires a pathologist's approval to transfuse least incompatible blood to our WAA patients. I was hoping some of you could give us insight. Some think it should be per specimen and some think it should be per transfuse order. Your thoughts please!

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone else is having issues with the screen strips for the Echo that have the lot number of R630 and expiration date of 08/25/2015. Thanks! CB

We do the Lui Freeze to identify the Immune Anti-A, Immune Anti-B or Immune Anti-AB. But when we do the Lui Freeze, as part of that test we are also running the cord serum against A1 or B cells (depending on Baby's and Mom's ABO) and Tube Screen Cells.

What is your facilities protocol for doing HDN workups on Babies? ABORh? DAT? Antibody Screen? Lui Freeze? Just curious what other places are doing as the hospital I interned in did not deliver babies, so never did HDN workups there. Thanks, CB

We use Immucor Echo technology. If we use the Echo to do AHG crossmatches then we do IS XM in tube. Most of us do the AHG XM in tube so that there is no need to do the IS XM part.

At our hospital tubes must all have the same information on them but the how we write them...order...and how we place the tubes in our rack is the tech choice. The tubes have to have the test you are doing and two numbers either from the MRN or accession number on each tube.

When we issue a unit of blood to a nurse who will then carry it to the floor, the unit is placed in a zip-lock bag. Then there is no reason for the nurse to wear gloves and if the unit were to be dropped and the bag break, it would be contained.

Our blood bank technical specialist would like me to ask if it is a CAP or AABB requirement to do QC on the bench racks if you are QCing the reagents on the instrument. She feels it is redundant and a waste of resources. I thank you in advance for the answers you provide. Tammy

We recently acquired an Echo for our laboratory Blood Bank and were advised not only to do QC on the instrument but also at the bench. We are wondering what other instrument users do for QC purposes? We would greatly appreciate your responses. Thanks in advance! Tammy

Hi Everyone, I am posting this for a co-worker as she is the key operator. If you use the Echo do you do Auto Controls when you have to do a panel? If so how? Do you program it on as a crossmatch of patients cells and patients plasma? Or do you do it as a DAT? Thanks in advance for your assistance, Tammy

Sorry, forgot to put that I work at St. Mary's in Madison, Wi.

Hello, I am not sure if anyone else has experienced problems when trying to reach Ortho's customer service but we have their pipettes for the gel system and two out of four of them have died. We don't operate very well with just two in our fast paced lab. The blood bank technical specialist tried to reach them on Friday to find out the cost of replacing them and got transferred a minimum of 6 times before finding out that the customer service department was in a meeting until noon. She left her name and number where she could be reached, but never received a return phone call. I have never personally had to call them but when I have had to deal with other customer service departments they are usually a little bit better at getting in touch with their clients as that is how they make their money. I know that as of Friday, our blood bank technical specialist was threatening to go back to the test tube method and pitch the gel because our patients deserve better service than this and so do we. Anyone else experience this kind of issue with Ortho or any other company for that matter??? Tammy

My supervisor is seeking information about compatibility with either the Tango or the Echo and HCLL. Are they bidirectional? Are you interfaced with your LIS? Is there a software bug with the Echo that requires you to load only 4 specimens at a time and wait for them to process before adding more? Can you comment on the instruments reliability and down time issues? How timely is the service response? How long does it take to get STAT test results? How much tech time is spent attending to the instrument? Is it really walk-away? Does it save you about one tech during your day shift? We would appreciate the opportunity to talk with users as we make our decisions to purchase Blood Bank automation, so any help you could give us would be great. You can contact Audrey Faust, Central Laboratory Supervisor, 608-258-6903 or Barb Utphall, Blood Bank Technical Specialist, 608-258-6927. Thank you! Tammy Heath, MT (ASCP) St. Mary's Hospital Madison, Wi 53715