ltechlin

Terri, just curious... which inspecting agency told you no N/A? We are expecting TJC this spring and I have just a couple N/As in blood bank, but I know chem and heme have more N/As! Just an example of my instrument maintenance for the cell washers, I am having the off shift techs show me how they check saline delivery if they change a box of saline. They don't do any regular cell washer maintenance on the off shifts. I guess we'll find out this spring if that is good enough!

We have a simple Excel spread sheet with the 6 CLIA requirements across the top of the page and then the tasks we selected going down the first column. Off the top of my head, I believe our tasks included: ABO/Rh (tube) Gel testing (antibody screens and IDs) Tube testing (antibody screens and IDs) Antigen testing (tube) DAT testing (tube) Crossmatches and other blood components Derrivatives (Rh IgG, tissue/bone, Leuko-reduction filters) There are a few boxes that we X out as N/A, such as Derrivatives, we can check "Work Record" but there are not "Results" per se. There are also some things that we double dip on. The Instrument Maintenance for Tube testing, Ag testing and DATs are all the same. We opted to keep it simple, but it is still a lot of work!

We have a Helmer Ultra Cell Washer that includes using diluted bleach on the tubing as part of the weekly maintenance....

I hear you... Thanks!

CM2 - Inspectors are ok with they patient just having possession of the armband, not actually wearing it?

When does the patient get a hospital and/or blood bank armband placed on them?

Does anyone have responsibility for storing frozen autologous bone? We have autologous bone flaps taken from patient's skulls in our freezer. What expiration date do other facilities use for their autologous bone? I too agree with the previous post concerning not putting bone back in the freezer, but wonder what others think when a piece of autologous bone is the piece in question?

We often bring O neg, uncrossmatched RBCs down to ER, but all are returned unused. Is there anything we can bill for this service?

Are the Bloodlocs reusable?

Are you using Ortho Gel cards? I could swear that the Ortho rep giving a demo last month told us that they don't have a complement card for DATs in gel? I thought that they only had polyspecific and AHG cards. I thought the rep said at her old hospital, when doing a DAT, they sent out the test if the doctor wanted the complement component by itself.

I am at a Michigan hospital that also has changed to standardized armband colors. We were using red blood bank armbands (pre-admit and inpatients alike) but was told we needed to change our armband color. Yes, our hospital armbands are white also. We now use green blood bank armbands. I am told that blood bank armbands have not been assigned a designated color, but red was taken by something else (allergies maybe, I don't recall). At our facility, before we put a blood bank armband on a pre-admit patient, they have a white hospital armband put on by the registration staff. When we have the need for an armband to be removed the person removing the band is asked to first contact the blood bank. We then send them a new band along with an audit trail form. At this point they can cut off the armband, complete the new band and place it on the patient. The form is a fill in the blank something along the lines of: "I, _____________, removed blood bank armband # ________ and replaced it with blood bank armband # ________ for __________________(patient name and medical record #) on _________ (date/time)". They must then return this form to blood bank immediately so we may update our records. Good Luck!