DebWerner

Under what conditions do Blood Bankers use a prewarm technique to exclude cold reacting antibodies?? I am looking to restrict the use of this technique to only when indicated but am having trouble coming up with an inclusive list of indications. Any input would be appreciated.

I just contacted CAP and this was their response:

Clear bags, for sure. If I'm a patient getting a transfusion, I do not want to see a biohazard bag containing the blood that they are going to give me. Opaque bags can get placed on a nursing station somewhere and tossed to the side because folks do not know that there is blood in there!!

Would anyone be willing to share a log sheet that they use for recording quarterly alarm activations, i.e. with the ice and the water. I need to update mine as was looking for ideas. Thanks in advance.

Uggh! Ok. So if I do an elution and the eluate is non reactive with all cells tested on both kits, is that a correlation? Or, if the eluate is reactive with all cells tested??? I cannot remember the last time that we eluted anything clinically significant. Luckily that doesn't happen very often!! Is this like trying to validate a test system using ALL antibodies for correlation? Sure, I have a frozen Diego b from 25 years ago!!! Thanks for your investigation and information!

I called the CAP about a year ago and I was told that this does not apply to Blood Bank reagents. Whoever I talked to at CAP said that the question would be revised. I have never been cited for not doing this. Has anyone else called them to ask the question?

Hello, everyone, We have a 4 inch tube system and are investigating tubing blood products through the tube system. Does anyone use a 4 inch carrier for this purpose, or are they all 6 inch carriers? Thanks.

Has anyone had any issues with the nurses thinking that there is blood available just because the patient is wearing a Blood Bank Band???

If you are not interfacing the echo to meditech, how are you handling the entry of results? Are you entering interpretations only? Or are you entering all results and interpretations? Are you afraid of a serious clerical error? Thanks.