cterranova

For about 3 weeks now our blood suppliers call us when they arrive at the hospital and my staff take a cart and go out to meet them. They are not doing the 'charging" for the boxes though. This is Buffalo, NY.

Our Blood bank Medical Director has realized that this can happen in the OR. We try our best to get that 2nd type but if we cannot, he will sign a deviation of policy for that event. Post OR we will then get the 2nd type. We do have an electronic ID system but anything can happen in an emergency or MTP going right up to the OR so we have this in place.

We have had the Echo since 2009 and have found that PEG is our go to tube method. It has worked well for the questionable nonspecific iffy capture results. PEG is positive when we repeat the screen and it truly is a clinically significant antibody but negative most times confirming our thoughts that there was really nothing there in the first place.

We have been having the same exact issues with Pos reactions almost all the way down with Ready ID lot 237 and if we run either Extend panels they are totally negative. My techs are doing extra work...Immucor said yesterday as is the standard answer to change the indicator cells and service on line said she did a quick query and didn't see too much of this problem. Really. I have had issues this time of year also in years past with screening cells but not the Ready ID. it is very frustrating.

Hi All, We are setting up an MTP for our OB Department which includes plasma. I would like some opinions on the return of unused plasma originally sent in a cooler with ice (ie 1-6 C). Are you discarding it upon return after 30 min.? As it seems taking the temperature might be an issue if having just thawed it at 37, we use Safe-T-Vue's temp tags on RBC's but again this won't work for just thawed plasma put into a cooler. Does anyone have a separate protocol for plasma return? Thanks.

Hi, I am looking for anyone who is currently doing the EXM with SoftBank and has built a dummy ABORh test to input historical typing. I would love you hear the components of the test as our LIS is having difficulty building a simple test which will trigger the ABO counter.

We switched back to saline as its on all of the cell washers which made it easier on the techs. We have used the new kit for 2 weeks now and have seen no difference.

Hi, Last year at the AABB I gave a talk on how to validate and then monitor a pneumatic tube system. I will give you my email and if you like I can email you the powerpoint slides and give you our validation forms to use for modify. Just email me and let me know. I did purchase the AABB guidelines which were very helpful and based much of my decisions and validation from the guidelines. We built a new ER and with it a pneumatic tube system for lab specimens, because of the distance they requested that blood products be tubed also. Here is my email cterrano@chsbuffalo.org

When we validated our pneumatic tube system for RhIG it failed. The pressure resulted in the syringe have extensive bubbles. Our Medical Director decided at that point that we would not use it for this product as it would be unsafe for the patient.

Does anyone allow multiple type products to be issued at the same time to the same patient during a bleeding episode without a cooler or storage container? Our Open Heart unit would like me to make an exception for them and allow for example 2 units of plasma and 2 units of platelets to be issued at the same time because their patients are actively bleeding out. I am not sure about making an exception. I don't want to deny a patient bleeding out but on the other hand I don't want nursing to take advantage of the situation by having to make one or two less trips to the blod bank to obtain products.

Our hospital is opening a new ER in April and a new pneumatic tube sytem is being installed. The ER does want the Transfusion Service to tube blood and blood products. Can anyone send me a procedure or give me suggestions as to what initially I should validate. Thanks, Cterranova Buffalo