[Blood Administration]

For facilities that still require a nursing personnel to pick up blood product from the blood bank for transufsion, Is RN the only authorized personnel to pick up blood product? If not, who else would you authorize to pick up blood product?

[Routine cord blood testing (ABO, Rh, DAT)]

The hospital in which I am newly employed performs routine cord blood testing on all babies born regardless of the mom's blood type or antibody status. I am trying to change this to where we only perform this testing on Rh neg moms, and moms with significant antibodies. I'd like to gather information from y'all on articles or any form of communication that would help me accomplish this task. I will need good documentation for this project.

I believe that there will be cost savings to the hospital if this "just 'cause we have always done it this way" thinking can be changed. I am in the process of determining how many cords were done in a year and the cost and how many would have been done if we only did them on Rh neg moms and moms with antibodies and the cost savings.

Has anyone else done this and what was the outcome? How many of y'all's hospitals are still performing this test on all babies?

Appreciate your help with this.

Pat Houck

Pat,

We are considering the possiblity on changing the cord blood testing practice at our healthcare system. How is your progress in this matter? Do you have any information that you can share?

Please e-mail to Harriet Lai --- hlai@mhs.net

Thanks!

Harriet

[Cord Blood Testing]

Thanks for the replies. Would you mind telling me in what state is your facility located? Thanks!

[Cord Blood Testing]

I would like to know the current practices in the Blood Bank community on Cord Blood Testing. In my healthcare system, we perform ABO/Rh and DAT on all cord blood. What does the rest of the industry do?

[Galileo issues]

You guys might want to check out the AABB forum if you haven't done so. I remembered seeing couple of posting regarding missed antibodies on the Galileo.

[Help with softbank]

At our facility, we print blood tags using a pre-printed forms on a post-script printer. Does anyone use Softbank to print the blood tag? How does that work?

[Blood Bank Automation]

Cornelia,

I would like to have those comparison data if you would so kindly to send them to me. My e-mail address is chlai@mhs.net or address it to:

Harriet Chung-Man Lai

Transfusion Service

Memorial Regional Hospital

3501 Johnson Street

Hollywood, FL 33021

USA

I've seen both the Galileo and Provue at work. Galileo has continuous feed, but a higher number of "false positive", and it takes more physical space. That particular facility use the Galileo for type and screen, antibody ID, and DAT, it could finish a workload of about 340 type and screen in less than 8 hr.

The Provue is a counter top instrument, smaller in size, do not have continuous feed. But could be interface with a bloodbank system. Reason for this particular facility to choose the Provue is to have the same methodology for their manual method and automation.

[Blood Transfusion Audits]

Could you send a copy of the audit to me please? Thanks!

[gel/ProVue and weak D]

It would be great if you could locate those articles. Our team is very interesting in reading the articles.

[gel/ProVue and weak D]

BloodBankTalk

Our facility also adopted the same cutoff value for gel testing. The reference is from Dr. Judd's article, "Rh Discrepancies caused by variable reactivity of partial and weak D types with different serologic techniques".

[Any ideas for P.I. projects?]

Would love to get a copy of that OR form too...... it sounds like an interesting QI projects.

[tech errors transfusion of incompatible blood]

Tech shortage does not just exist in Blood Bank. I agree the workload of those techs should be in consideration along with other factors, but at the same time, we are dealing with human lives here.

Implementing the gel system is a good option. It takes away the subjectivity. How about utilizing the IT department, ask them to develop a database using Microsoft Access to keep track of the patient ABO/Rh records if a full LIS system is out of the budget. Paper logs is definitely not a good method for record keeping.

[How long can FFP be out at Room Temp and still relabel as Thawed Plasma?]

What about 5 days plasma? Is there any literature or study done on this product?

[tech errors transfusion of incompatible blood]

If the employees have not make significant error prior to this incident, then I don't think they should be fired, unless there's proof that they did not actually perform the testing and they claimed they did. Definitely needs to have documentation showing that the employees were counselled. In addition, re-training and competency should also be done on those employees involved.

But this is a serious error, the hospital should consider implementing a computer system for blood bank. I'm surprised that there are still hospitals without computer system. Let's be proactive here.