swede

We have a new safety committee in our laboratory, and they are saying that we need to remove our saline from the 10L cube cardboard boxes and store the 10L bags in another plastic box that we relabel. They are using the "no shipping boxes" as the basis for this decision. We've never heard of anyone in blood bank doing this. Our arguement is that we are not a patient care area, so the cardboard shouldn't be a problem. The committee is saying since phlebotomists come in and out of the lab, it counts as patient care......they do not come and hang out in the blood bank storerooom. Having a hard time convincing the committee that we are not going to be taking saline out of the box.....HELP!

It is against CAP regulations to be discussing survey results before the due date.

Occasionally we get a batch of cards that have not been handled well in shipment. If the cards have bubbles, the Vision will reject them. We do spin them down and put them on the Vision to be used. This is not a "double spin" of the cards......they were not used, they were just rejected for appearance by the camera.

We have been doing second ABO/Rh types on transfusion candidates with no previous history since 2002! We use previously drawn hematology specimens whenever possible. Since nursing does some of our draws, we send a small pink top tube to the floor to be used (we are the only department allowed to order and use these tubes) for the "confirm type". We use parafilm around the cap so we can make it "tamper proof" to some extent. Before we did this step, industrious people would draw two tubes at the same time and save one, waiting for our request of a second draw. They would pour over the saved tube into our special tube....now they can't. We do second types on all ABO types, we don't exclude type O.....they too can be WBIT.....which could affect other lab departments.....we let them know if we find mistypes. We also don't exclude emergency transfusion......that is when the most errors happen because people seem to lose their minds in high stress situations. We stick with type O until the confirm type has been drawn. We tried the two signatures on the tube route, but found they were just grabbing anyone and having them sign the tube whether they witnessed the draw or not. Fun times in the blood bank! :)

We are using the NERL saline on our Vision. We've been running for about 18 months with no problems.

I don't know if you've found your answers, but we just went live with our Vision on Meditech 5.67. We had a problem with the antibody screen results being transmitted from the Vision to Meditech and we could see the correct transmission, but the results were not showing in the Result Entry screen. In case you are having this problem, there is a fix for this problem.....a couple of DTSs had to be updated, and now the results enter as expected. Our only problem we have left is getting the TAS profile to download correctly to the Vision. Currently if we have the TAS entered as a download code of TAS,CB, the Vision ends up running 2 types and 2 screens. I think it is because the TAS is made up of a Type and a Screen which are also separate Download codes. If you have this problem and maybe an answer.....let me know! Thanks!

Updated Question: We have our LIS set up and results are being transmitted to Meditech. If we just run an antibody screen, the screen cell results and the interpretation go thru the interface and are resulted properly. If we run a type and antibody screen, the type is working fine, and the results of screen cells are uploaded to the interface, but the interpretation is not there and the results do not go into the result mode of Meditech....the screen cell results are left blank instead of filling in with the transmitted results. The type is transmitted first and then the screen is sent a few minutes later......does anyone else have this problem or have an idea why it is occurring. The upload/download codes must be right or the individually ordered screen wouldn't work. could it be because the same barcode specimen is transmitted twice? Any ideas?

We are going to be setting up our Vision next week. Does anyone have information or tips on how to create the test profiles and set up the interface with Meditech Client Server 5.6.....upload, download, profile names etc?

Our Vision was installed last week and we will be going to training soon. I was wondering (hoping) that someone might have a validation plan that they would be willing to share so that we don't have to totally reinvent the wheel. We will be doing types/screens, cords, DATs , AHG crossmatches, and possibly antibody panels. We will also (hopefully) be interfaced with Meditech Client Server 5.67. Any guidance would be much appreciated!

I also have a question about doing partial testing for a cancer center in our health system. Their lab works under a separate CLIA license. Currently we do all the blood bank testing and send the crossmatched units to them every day by courier. They want to start storing products there and want to do the electronic crossmatch there after we have done the type and antibody screen. Is this acceptable practice?

Yes, we are finding the same thing with our "new" monitors. We are going to stick with Safe-T-Vue. The Fisherbrand was changing to "out of temp" while the units were still well within acceptable range (this was with the 6. The 10's were fine). Thank you for the article!

Thank you, we are unaware that they don't remain activated. How long do they stay activated and how do you know that they are no longer activated?

We have been given some to test and we are currently trying them out. They seem very easy to use. I like that we don't have to activate them in any special way and can store them at room temperature. I'm hoping they are as easy as they appear..... We will be using the 6's and 10's. Thank you!

no thank you. We are looking at Hemo-Trac indicators and I just wanted feed back on those.