AuntiS
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Everything posted by AuntiS
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We do the same as Liz. We only hold for 96 hours. If testing is needed after that, heel pick required. s
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Cottage hospital in Santa Barbara. Sounds like a dream!
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But then, two things that happened recently... 1. Our ER is undergoing some renovations and patients are being shuffled a bit. The director of the ER sent the lab (and Xray) an email requesting that we use patient ID armbands and not room numbers. (!!!!!) 2. I have revised the nursing blood administration policies and procedures. I spoke to the director of nursing to sign off on the procedures. She didn't think it was her job since these are just "guidelines" and there aren't any "shalls and shall nots" in them. :(:(:( Anyways, hope you all have a GREAT lab week! s
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True enough - all great points. But, alas, we still do them every 3 months. Something to put on the "TO DO" list...
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I had not! Honestly, I had to google it because I had never heard of it! In our area, I know other labs have old Provues, Visions, Echo/Neo and a couple of Tangos... Do you have experience with this analyzer??
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Wow! Thanks for such an amazing, well thought out reply! I said Neo in an earlier post - I did mean Echo. We had a rep out here the other day who put on a presentation for the Neo/Echo. All the staff loved it. And we love the idea of automation. It just seems like such a big change to go to a whole different technology. The rep also mentioned that we would have the manual back up included. We are definitely getting out there to check out some other lab set ups. I have a long list of questions (as I always do!!!) for each of the other labs and I will definitely be adding a couple more points from the post above. Fingers crossed - I think automation is so important. So much safer and freeing up the tech to do work other than manual pipetting is so appealing!
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Well, I don't WANT to switch from gel. But, when it comes down to it, I think the solid phase (the Neo anyways) is less expensive than the Vision. I really like the look of the vision, and a couple of hospitals in our area have just started using them and seem very happy so far. The reasons you state above are all the reasons I think staying with gel is the right choice for our lab.
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I'm resurrecting this thread to pick your brains!!! - we are looking at automation as well. We have generalists (core lab) in our hospital - transfuse about 275-300 RBC per month. We are do manual testing currently - tube ABO/Rh and gel for screens and antibody idents. And... we are looking at automation. On my radar? The Ortho Vision, Immucor Echo and the Biorad Tango (the IH hasn't yet been approved for use). I'm curious to hear any thoughts from you all. What you like, didn't like, cost... How switching from gel to other methods went over... s
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Ok... but are we also talking about when there are weak reactions with anti-D? Less than a 2+ reaction? Because, here at our lab, we will send out a female of childbearing potential (less than 45 for us) out for genotyping. Until those results come back, we treat her as Rh Negative. Other patients get treated as Rh Positive. We report out those patients as Rh Negative (override the blood group in the LIS), add a comment, and wait for the genotyping to come back. s -
Distilled water with an algicide. Changed once a month or if there is a leak/contamination. I did notice that Cleanbath is recommended for our Helmer thawer in the manual... (Helmer CleanBath (400348-1) may be added to the water in the chamber to inhibit bacterial growth.) s
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We do not use extra BB armbands here. We use the hospital armband for patient ID. Phlebotomy is done primarily by the lab (MLA) and almost all is done using a bedside scanner/label system (Mobilab), which has drastically reduced patient ID errors. I am hoping, in the near future, that we will be moving onto electronic XM which will then include a 2 blood group policy as well. That being said... many years ago I worked with at a place that used Tympanex armbands. It was before the LIS (the horror!!!) and in a situation where many people had the same name and hospital fraud was rampant. It worked well. Would I want it now? No way. s
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Gel antibody panel and tube antibody panels
AuntiS replied to amym1586's topic in Transfusion Services
We do the same. It is super easy to convert 3% to 0.8%. And, as I am sure everyone else does, we keep older panels and screening cells for extra cells if needed (our policy says we can use them up to 3 months expired as long as there is no hemolysis/turbidity) s -
This is what we do, too! I was going to take a pic and post it, but you beat me too it!!! (can't take credit - the genius before me thought of it)
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We don't wash - unless there is some type of discrepancy. Washing is the first step in our discrepancy investigation s
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Interesting! Does anyone else have any experience with these? I won't even look at Comark (thanks Auntie-D!), I see Lascar has a bunch of different options as does Dickson... I need to purchase new thermometers for our fridges/freezers/incubators now anyway, so this is an exciting option! s
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Never even thought of using Velcro!!!! I, like Dr. Pepper, have a label maker. I have labeled the crap out of everything!!! I LOVE it! (I'm sure the techs do too ) s
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We use it in Chemistry here as well. Never thought of using it any where else! Never had the need for it... s
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My humble opinion??? Loving the new version!!! Looks great! Thanks for all of your hard work
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Interesting... I like that you change the expiry date, but how do you make sure the nurse transfusing the blood gets the unit in before the 4 hour expiry? I mean, they should know to transfuse all units of blood within 4 hours of issue from the lab. But, if it is issued at 3 hours from the lab, they only have an hour. How do you make sure that happens? BTW, we discard all units returned that are >10 ºC. Side question: do the people in the USA use degrees Celsius? Just dawned on me that I've never seen Fahrenheit on this board! s
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We just give Rh Neg units here if the antibody is from only RhIG. No IAT XM required. s
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We really like our here. No problems either s
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How far out from surgery do you allow a pre-op T/S collection?
AuntiS replied to KMMinNH's topic in Transfusion Services
In what world do surgeons/anesthesia review charts prior to the surgery? LOL! But... great point! Speaking of tunnel vision - we really aren't the only department in the lab. I mean, obviously we are the most important... We are lucky enough to have a Blood Conservation Coordinator here in our hospital, so a lot of the elective surgeries are seen quite far out s -
How far out from surgery do you allow a pre-op T/S collection?
AuntiS replied to KMMinNH's topic in Transfusion Services
So... why is there a push to go from 30 to 3 days? For everyone else who has 3/7/10 days for PREOP patients, why? Is it a historical "we've always done it this way" thing? Has there been a problem? Do you worry you aren't getting a proper transfusion history? We are a medium sized community hospital. Not too big, not too small. But, I cannot imagine the chaos if all our PREOP samples were only good for 3 days! anti-s -
We do cards as well. We attach the card to a letter that we send to the physician. Hopefully (!!!) the physician reads the letter, explains everything to the patient and then gives the card tot he patient. 1. we do issue a new one if there is a new antibody 2. we issue one every time we have a new antibody to our hospital 3. we keep a copy of the letter/card on the patien't file 4. only clinically significant antibodies Sometimes people wander into our hospital with a card from another facility AND let the phlebotomist know. But, I often wonder if most people forget they even have it. I LOVE the idea of the hospital business cards! Something to look into!!!! Thanks! Meditech can generate a "card". It is not the prettiest card tho s
