YorkshireExile

Does anyone use RBC expiration rate for their monthly quality indicators (key performance indicators)? If so, what do you use as your denominator? Do you use number of RBCs transfused in the month or the the number of RBCs received from your blood supplier per month? We use number of RBCs received from our blood supplier as we wanted to monitor we don`t excessively order blood that may not be used and expire. But now I have read that this may not be correct. Also, what is your target? We state our expiration rate should be <2%.

Thank you Baby Banker and Neil for your recent input. So as we are using leucoreduced blood, does that mean that a blood unit would never be implicated in causing CMV infection in a recipient? Or there is. and always will be, a very small risk a leucoreduced unit can cause a CMV infection?

Thanks Malcolm, So you are saying that blood should be leucoreduced and CMV negative for the categories that I stated? What if the blood donation center that supplies my blood does not do CMV testing? All I can do then is give the leucoreduced blood. On a similar topic, we had a newborn baby receiving a number of leucodepleted RBC top-up transfusions since birth. At 35 days old the baby had a CMV quantitative screen done and was CMV negative. At 65 days old the baby was tested again and the CMV screen was positive. Is the reason for this purely down to one of the transfused units? Or could other factors be involved eg infection passed on by another healthcare worker, or by the family, or by environmental causes?

All the blood in our hospital is leucoreduced, and we have classified this as "CMV safe". But is this actually the case? Is leucoreduced blood the equivalent of CMV negative blood? For the following patients would you just give leucoreduced blood, or leucoreduced blood that is also CMV negative? Intra-Uterine Transfusion Exchange transfusion for a baby Top-up transfusion for a premature baby Top-up transfusion for a full term baby

I`ve just read a new article in CAP Today concerning the RHD genotyping of Rh Negative patients. Link to the article is : (hope the link works) http://www.captodayonline.com/groups-urge-phase-rhd-genotyping/ What do people think about this? Is anyone sending samples from Rh-negative patients for RHD genotyping as a routine? Is anyone thinking about doing this? Do many labs do no further work-up on a Rh negative pregnant patient? My lab does a Biorad Weak D confirmation test only on Rh Negative cord blood samples, not on routine antenatal patients. We use a biorad grouping card on our antenatal patients that will show a weak agglutination with anti-D if the D antigen is weak, so we would just say that the patient is actually weak D positive, but would treat the patient as Rh Negative with regards to transfusions or Rh immune globulin. Of course, we don`t know for sure if it is a weak D, or a variant D etc. Am I wasting my Rh Negative blood stocks and Rh immune globulin as stated in the article? Should genotyping become routine?

Thanks for the information John. You mention that AABB has a validation program for the pneumatic tube system. Is it available on their website? I had a look at couldn`t find it anywhere, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

Thanks so much Goodchild - a fantastic answer!

I`m working in a new hospital and we had a pneumatic tube system installed to transport specimens from the wards to the lab. I`ve now been asked to see if it is okay to transport blood products through the pneumatic tube (in appropriate special containers). At first the thought of doing this horrified me, but there are papers published that say this is okay. Is anyone doing this with their blood products? Presumably it might be useful to send products to the OR quickly, but what about checking the units and the documentation involved? I can forsee many problems!

Thanks for all the replies. So it seems in UK a form is needed to be sent with the specimen, but in USA no form is needed. Is that okay with CAP and AABB?

Is it a requirement by CAP or AABB standards that all blood bank specimens must be accompanied by an actual manual paper request form for tests such as Type and Screen or Type and Crossmatch? I always thought it was, but now I`m not so sure. The form could be computer generated when the doctor places the order. Previous hospitals I have worked in insisted on this so we could compare the details on the form with the details on the specimen, but if you have a good computer system where you can see all the ordering details for checking, is an actual paper form really necessary? My current hospital wants to reduce paper forms (well, remove them altogether) and if I want to keep for blood bank I need documentary evidence to prove why I need forms or evidence that accrediting bodies require forms. So forms or no forms with BB specimens?

On behalf of a colleague: Whenever we issue a blood product we employ the 30 mins rule for it to be returned if it is not used. If returned unused after 30 mins we would discard the product. We strictly apply to this blood units (even though there is no direct evidence for the 30 minute limit, as has been mentioned previously in this forum). Does everyone also apply this rule to FFP and platelets? Would you discard these units if returned after 30 minutes? For those who would, is there any difference if the FFP is actually issued straight from being thawed in the waterbath so it is still relatively warm, or if the FFP is issued cold after being in the fridge for a while. Would the 30 minute rule apply regardless?

We have chart recorder and the digital readout for our fridges and freezers - but we also have external digital thermometers in place at the top and bottom so we can check the temperatures inside are okay overall. Are the external digital thermometers really necessary?

Dear Auntie-D, which UK guideline mentions the third check? Thanks

We are not in the UK, but apart from mothers with antibodies we only do grouping and DAT on babies whose mother is group O or any group Rh negative. Interesting on your choice of Biorad card. We use a Biorad newborn card that only has one anti-D well but has an anti-AB well, as sometime we get very weak reactions with the anti-A and/or anti-B and we use the anti-AB as confirmation. Is using two types of anti-D common for grouping babies (and adults for that matter)? John - what do you do next when you have a grouping result with one anti-D well negative and one anti-D well positive?

Only medicine we could find out that the baby had was Prostin.