SRTECH

Can you please share what validation was done for your Artel?

Was your optimal spin time 15 or 20 seconds?

Is anybody using both Biorad Reagents and Clay Adams 2002 Serofuge? My Blood Bank is considering ordering Biorad Reagents instead of Ortho and Immucor. Biorads reagents inserts states to spin @ 800-1000 RCF or g. Clay Adams set to 3400 RPM. The conversion calculators I got needs a radius for the rotor. I measured the rotor and got app. 6cm. This works to 817 RCF. I had someone else calculate and he got 7.5 radius and >1000g. Any comments or views will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Thanks everyone for your responses. Unfortunately, using the surgery schedule is a must for us. Hospital Admin mandated that we use them. Prior to that we had sooooooo many issues with surgery because they either: 1. Forget to order blood/blood products 2. Put in the wrong order 3. The other placed had the wrong attributes 4. Put in the orders,(dispatch status) but forgot to send a specimen. etc..etc... The surgery schedule has greatly reduced friction between the OR and BB. It's feels so good not to have anaestheologist screaming at us that we " are killing their patients"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The blood center we deal with uses adsorbed plasma to find compatible xm'd units. Is this that so much safer than using "least incompatible units"?

You could print out the calender from otho's website.

Our Blood Bank Policy allows an 8 hour turnaround time for routine, but experience has taught me that quite a few TS ordered routine becomes a stat orders. Thus we try to get all our routine TS done in a 2 hours. Stats - 1 hour.

Presently we use Cerner Millennium which has the Label Verify option. However what we did prior to this(infact we still do it to eliminate errors) we had an MT, other than the one who prepared the product, to perform a second check then dispense. If a Tech crossmatch, aliquot, thaw, irradiate or otherwise modifies a product, he has to get another Tech to do a double check and dispense the product.

We do not check temperatures if RBC/Plasma are returned within 30 minutes. We send all our RBCs and Plasma on ice and they are kept on ice if there is no blood bank refrigerator in that department. They are also returned to on ice. We perform yearly tube system validation where we document temperatures on several products sent to and returned from different locations/hospitals, within 30 minutes.

We presently have a policy where two people need to be present for a draw. You'd be amazed at how ingenious nurses can be...recently we received two specimens supposedly from the same patient with double verification(two initials); each specimen had a different name!!!! When I called the nurse..she told me nursing's take on double verification....."Each nurse goes to do their draws and brings it back to the nursing station to be double verified by a second nurse...

Thanks

Thanks for your response Deny! Do you keep your surgery schedule for a specified period of time, in case there are issues later?

Does any one else do this? About a year ago we began asking our Operating rooms to send us their surgery schedule the night before surgery. Our third shift staff will then check the schedule and compare it with orders in our computer system(dispatched, collected). If anything looks amiss, they will contact the floor(for inpatients) and preop(outpatient) to rectify the issue. Also one of our a Blood Bank Staff attends a 6.30am meeting to compare what products the Blood Bank has ready for each patient. They various doctors will then notify us of any changes then. Since it"s inception, we"ve had fewer isuues with the ORs, even if it's additional work for our BB staff. Is any or everybody else doing this? How long do you keep the surgery schedules? Please share your method of keeping surgery HAPPY . Thanks

"confuses me, how can you tell if there has not been another antibody developed unless you do a panel to ID what is there" Per my Blood Banks Policy· When the current antibody screen is positive and an antibody identification has been performed within the last 30 days and there is no increase in strength of antibody reactivity or appearance that there is a different antibody present than what was previously identified, antigen negative units must be crossmatched without further antibody identification work. (Exception: When the patient has demonstrated a warm autoantibody and the screen is positive antibody identification must be performed every 7 days if patient was transfused after the last workup). .

Forgive me if this has been adressed before... At the hospital where I work we repeat Antibody Id's as follows: 1. Pregnant Patients : Every three days. 2. Warm Autoantibodies : If patients have been transfused after last ABID- every 7 days. 3. All other patients : every 30 days if there is no increase in strength of antibody reactivity or appearance that there is a different antibody present than what was previously identified. My search of the AABB Technical manual did not result in any time frame that I could find. How often do you do the above? Thanks for your anticipated responses!