vav5325

Wyndgate was its own entity. Mckesson just happened to use their blood bank software (safetrace tx) and named it Horizon Blood Bank. Wyndgate was bought out by Haemonetics. Haemonetics is keeping the same software and Mckesson is still bundling their Horizon Lab and Horizon Blood bank and saying its one vendor.

Our hospital has ~800 beds and a level 2 trauma center. We have a massive transfusion procedure as well as a " Massive Transfusion Protocol" (MTP). I know they seem one in the same but for our facility there not. The massive transfusion procedure is initiated by the tech and pathologist when a current patient has taken a large amount of products over a short period of time. If the pt is Rh neg and if were low on inventory we obviously switch over to Rh pos. Plasma and Cryo are thawed on demand and Plts given upon request. Now our MTP is a little different. This is initiated by the physician. They call the blood bank and state that an MTP has been initiated on a PT. We immediately send down 4 O neg PRBCS , 4 "thawed" AB plasma and 1 PLT. This is continued every 30 minutes until the MTP is called off by the physician. PLTs are sent every other round. "Pooled cryo" is thawed on request. If the pt is a Male or a female >50 we give O pos prbcs until we receive a sample. Our pathologist and blood supplier are notified when an MTP is called. Each MTP is reviewed by the Transfusion Committee. Hope this helps.

Just curious on other Blood Banks protocols on checking for completeness of returned Transfusion Cards. Our protocol has it that the nursing staff complete the transfusion card. top copy of the card goes on the patient chart while the bottom portion is returned to the blood bank. The techs in the blood bank check to see if everything is filled out. If certain portions of the card aren't filled out we then give the card to the manager. Our current transfusion card is printed with a dot matrix printer. We are currently switching over to Horizon Blood Bank software (SafeTraceTx) and most of the unit tag templates are for laser printers. Just wondering if a copy of the completed transfusion card has to come back to the blood bank or is it ok for it to be just on the pts chart. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the response. So if I'm understanding you correctly...... if two employees both work exclusively in the blood bank department. One has a BB and the other has their MT. Both should be on the same pay scale correct. Of course I'm just keeping all other variables constant ( experience, yearly merit raises, etc)

A funny misspelling on Dr. orders that i see all the time : instead of platelet pheresis I see alot of plt foreece's. I've also seen a Dr request for eradicated blood instead of irradiated blood. Too funny.

In our facility we perform Lui freeze on newborns with positive DATs (mom has negative screen l). Though I've heard from other new techs that the procedure is quite outdated. I wouldn't mind knowing as well what other facilities are doing in this situation.

I recently passed my BB Technologist exam last month, and HR at my hospital is not recognizing me as a MT in blood bank. They state that it is nothing more than an additional certification to my existing MLT degree, and in turn no salary compensation will be given. In order to be considered an MT (an received the pay increase) I would have to pass the generalist MT exam. I have a BS in Biology, MLT degree and 4 years blood bank experience. I exclusively work in the blood bank for an 800 bed level II trauma center. Anyone else in a similar situation? Did your facility recognize you as a MT in your specialty?

Thanks for the responses...very helpful:) As you can tell I'm fairly new in the field of Blood banking (just graduated a couple of years ago). Thanks again

Im more interested in whats going on in the body of adult patients. Ill give two examples: 1 - 40 year old male who has an ABO of A pos receives 1 unit of FFP that is B. Clearly he is going to have a severe haemolytic reaction. The FFP has about 280 ml. 2- Same 40 year old male received 2 plt pheresis about 8 months ago. One PLT was O while the other was B. Both PLTs had about 200 mls of plasma. No adverse reaction. Scenario 2 happens all the time in our facility. So more ABO incompatible plasma was given in scenario 2 then in scenario 1. NO reaction in the 2nd but a severe one the 1st Am I wrong to think that there will be a reaction in scenario 1? Ive always treated FFP and Red Cells equally in terms of haemolytic reactions. Just trying to figure out whats the difference when infusing platelet pheresis then FFP when plasma amounts are the same.

Yeah we give our neonates ABO compatible PLT pheresis. The circulatory volume in adult pts makes sense but we wouldnt give an A pos patient B FFP because of the Ant-A in the plasma. Where has we wouldnt hesitate to give the same A pos patient a B PLT pheresis. Could it be that the concentration of plts in the pheresis is high enought to offset the titer of the ABO antibodies in the plasma?

At our facility (800 beds,Trauma 2 ) we often give ABO incompatilbe PLT Pheresis to our pts. Ive noticed that there is 150ml to 350 ml of plasma in each plt. Thats the same amount of plasma in our FFP. Why do our pts not have more of a "reaction" to these plts? We've had some with weakly positive DATS but thats it. Just curious.