krichards

I know I have seen somewhere that relabeling FFP when thawed (with 24 hour expiration) is not required. However, now that I need that source I cannot seem to locate it. Can anyone tell me where I can find this in black & white? My lab manager was told that JC requires it, and would like to have some documentation to the contrary.

I, for one, am thrilled to see this site expanding. Not every user on this site is confined to keeping up Blood Bank rules, regs, etc. I oversee both BB and Microbiology, and will greatly benefit from a similar access to the wealth of knowledge found in this site. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

For your VP pondering this idea: Do you require the techs to look at the physician's written order for every CBC, CMP, etc? Do you require pharmacy to look at the same orders for every drug dispensed?

Thank you all for your input. I have an exceptional Micro staff, and they have been extraordinarily helpful in covering my deficiencies and general lack of knowledge. With two exceptions, they have all been with us for over 20 years. I am relying on them heavily for any and all input. It is, however, embarrassing that I cannot answer a simple phone call without having to run back and get a quick lesson in order to provide even the briefest of answers. Hopefully, that will improve with time. My primary problems lie with the rules and regs (they can only tell me what we are currently doing), and in "updating" some of our processes. I've already had 2 vendors tell me that we are holding some of our cultures longer than anyone else. With 2/3 of the staff eligible to retire, I need to start finding more streamlined processes to help the techs when we have to start running with fewer and/or less experienced staff. Unfortunately, they're going to fight me on any and all changes, but I am responsible looking at the bigger picture, and have no intention of implementing anything that will not, ultimately, make all their lives easier.

I was recently "awarded" our Microbiology department in addition to my BB duties.:eyepoppin I have not done more than plate cultures since school. To top it off, I began maternity leave just a couple of weeks later. Now, I am 4 months behind in 2 departments, and still have very little idea what I am doing in Micro. Does anyone know if there are any sites similar to this for Micro? Or if there are any other similar resources out there than can help me get up to speed and get questions answered fast? Needless to say, I need all the help I can get!! Karen

You might also want to look at Thermogenesis. We've been using them for years, and love them.

Our PI director has told me that there are benchmarks out there for appropriate levels of wastage. However, I have not yet been able to find any. I may turn this over to her, since she says she has seen them before. I'm in agreement in that this may not be appropriate or meaningful for our facility. Our blood utilization committee would like to establish an acceptable waste threshold, based on those at other facilities or national benchmarks, because they do not want to have to discuss product waste at every meeting.

Does anyone have any benchmarks for what constitutes an acceptable level of waste?

Our facility merges "No ID" trauma patients with their old records only AFTER calling the BB. If the patient has a current sample, then they wait until the sample expires. If the patient does not, then we give them the ok to merge records.

We had a physician tell us recently that he could not donate because he was too busy saving patients' lives!

We run a DAT on the Echo in lieu of an autocontrol.

Our Transfusion Committee was disbanded about 5 years ago due to lack of interest and participation. Every time the issue comes up, our pathologist chooses not to re-create the committee for the same reason. Our stats are currently presented in our Quality Council and Patient Quality & Safety Council...the former is physician-only, the latter being primarily dept. administrators. Because the BB stats are only a small fraction of what is covered each month, our medical director and lab director present these stats in the meetings, not me. When I have all my reports completed each month, I simply email them to the lab and med directors with my comments. These comments are then repeated almost verbatim when they are presented. For us, this arrangement has worked well for everyone involved.

We have been using our Echos for close to a year now. We identify an average of 4-6 Kells each month...some id'd when we were still using gel, and many that were not. Like others have commented, we have discovered antibodies not detected by gel: Jka, C,and E. Yes, gel sometimes catches something that the capture does not. However, we feel that we are detecting many more antibodies with capture than we are missing, and that those we are missing are most likely IgM.

We allow phlebotomists, and anyone else who has documented training, to collect BB specimens. We are 350+ beds, with about 10,000 units transfused annually. We would never consider allowing, much less requiring, our BB techs to do their own draws. We rarely have more than one tech working, and if they are out drawing, who is going to get the blood ready for the next trauma or bleeder that walks through the door? Can the nurses or phlebs work up antibodies??? You do have two good options: You could have all the patients delivered to the BB so that your techs could draw them. Or, you could ask the COO, with his BB experience, to do these draws for you. We did implement bedside scanning this year. However, our nursing units, most notably ER, refuse to use them. Their list of excuses goes on forever. I'll never understand why so few nursing personnel understand the importance of patient safety. As always, our safety measures are only successful if they are used by everyone all the time.

I built an interface between the Echo & Sunquest this summer. Let me start by saying that I am not an IT person, and have never done anything remotely like this before. I was introduced to a lot of Sunquest functions that I never knew existed. Our biggest difficulty was getting a connection established. Once we finally got the connection established, I pretty much followed the directions SQ gave me, and had absolutely no trouble. Both Immucor and SQ were extremely helpful when I got stuck. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm more than happy to help, and it's all still pretty fresh. Karen