KLBennett

Dianna you are a godsend, I have been struggling with writing an ABO discrepancy procedure. I hope you don't mind if I liberally "steal" from yours.

We currently use the buffered gel cards for a manual IS crossmatch. Ortho sent out a letter January 28th of 2011 stating; "Approved methods to detect ABO incompatibility include a tube immediate spin crossmatch, an MTS Buffered Gel immediate spin crossmatch or a computer/electronic crossmatch, when all electronic eligibility requirements for electronic crossmatch are met. Please consult the ID Micro Typing System Implementation Guide and Procedures Manual for the use of the MTS Buffered Gel card in the Immediate Spin Crossmatch application." I can send you a copy of the complete four page letter or you can contact Ortho Technical services at 1-800-421-3311 (options 2,1,1)

It is required to get a variance. We just finished our TJC inspection two weeks ago and the inspector asked about and wanted to see our copy of variance. I had heard about this from my local blood center (Puget Sound) last year and we used the sample request form verbatim. We sent it in to the FDA and recieved our variance within 6 weeks. I recommend getting the variance, it's easy and the most painless dealing I've ever had with any form of the federal government. And It saved my bacon in the inspection.

I so agree. I really miss those colored labels.

I recently started working at a small hospital in WA that is designated critcal access and therefore performs a broad range of testing considering it's size. One of the first things they asked me to trouble shoot was a positive Proficiency test result with their immucor fetal screening kit. What I determined through multiple runs of the same sample and qc cells was that inadequate washing was the culprite. They use 10X75 tubes even though the manufacturer recommends 12x75. Increasing the the number of washes, either manually or automatically, eliminated the false positive. The reactivity of the negative qc cell was not affected by the fewer washes but the positive qc cell was. The fewer washes performed the more rosettes seen in the positive cell and proficiency sample.