Greetings Community! I would like to talk to anyone who has experience operating a blood bank in the pediatric setting.
The Blood Bank that serves my Pediatric hospital is located in the building next door, and therefore the staff at the Pediatric hospital feel that they "do not have a blood bank" (even though they are all connected by pneumatic tube and you can walk out of the door of one and into the other within several strides). Therefore, there are several refrigerators throughout the hospital containing a unit or two of O- Emergency RBCs that they can grab and transfuse as uncrossmatched (filling out the appropriate paperwork and sending with samples to the Blood Bank). They are located in the ER, OR, PICU, and NICU.
For anyone who stores RBCs like this for pediatric use, how old are the RBCs in the refrigerator? Do you irradiate them?
For anyone who does NOT store RBCs like this, how did you convince everyone that you could deliver uncrossmatched RBCs quickly enough that they should just order them from the Blood Bank? I have suggested that they can just call and we can get them what they need, but was met with the argument that "when we need them, we need them now."
Thanks in advance!
Heather