Our admitting department raised this concern. Currently, we require that preadmit patients be armbanded with a hospital armband if pre-transfusion specimens are drawn. We then send the patient home with a warning to keep the armband on. We require that the patient present for surgery or outpatient infusion with the armband attached. If the armband is removed by the patient before admission, the pre-transfusion sample must be redrawn and testing repeated. Since the patient's hospital armband has private information such as first and last names, DOB, account number, etc... is this a privacy issue? The argument is that the pre-surgical patient is going home, going to the store, eating out in public with the armband exposed and therefore others can see their private information. SO, they have proposed that they armband the patient, draw the pre-transfusion specimen, remove the armband and then "tape" it into the chart until the patient returns. I'm having some instinctive negative reaction to this proposal, but I can't really find any regulatory requirement that confirms the necessity of keeping the armband on the patient until transfusion. In fact, I can't really find any requirement that associates blood administration with an armband! Thoughts? Stephanie
