Karrieb61

So if I decide to pursue the Ortho workstation for example, am I supposed to be contacting Customer Service at Ortho? Kind of confusing now it seems

You can have it from me- You did a great and thorough job from what you are telling us! Good for you! I don't think the pit in the stomach ever really goes away and I think having that keeps you on your toes, keeps you from getting complacent and potentially miss something. So you had a rotten situation, did all the right things, and it worked out- again good on 'ya!! I can't think of an antibody situation offhand that I was witness to, but I have "fond" memories of working alone overnight when a newborn was in crisis and the MD came flying into the Blood Bank begging me for blood, no time for any paperwork, just PLEASE let him have one of the Oneg Pedi units off the shelf. He grabbed one as I opened the frig and out the door he flew. That one has stayed with me for 40 years. Oh yeah, about 15 years ago there was the actively gushing patient on the OR table with 5 antibodies and the surgeon came rushing in begging for "ONeg blood, that's all we need" and I had to 1) try to explain to him (calmly so he wouldn't hear my heart beating very loudly) that ONeg wasn't the solution to multiple antibodies 2) make the BB tech who was screaming at him "you're gonna kill the patient" sit down and shut up and 3) pray as we waited for delivery of several screened units from the Blood Center next door. We got the units, out he went and the patient did well. So your future events will likely happen. Try to read up on problem situations when you can to keep fresh, including any online teaching tools you can use from your vendor or here in the wonderful PathlabTalk. We are here for you!

Thanks again to everyone but we literally don't have the space for a Provue even if I could justify the instrument. I know quite a bit about it, used it actually, but its footprint is way too big for the lab. The search goes on I guess.

Thanks everyone. My "issue" with the Provue is that its meant for large labs and ours is very small. The last lab I worked in is a Provue lab but with about 10 times the volume we have where I am now. We are a good size for manual gel but we have crosstrained 2nd and 3rd shift techs who have to walk all over the place between workstations. So I am hoping for something with the practicality of the Echo (no hovering over it while it goes through spins, 37 degree incubation, etc) -but not solid phase technology. Our reference lab uses gel so we don't agree on results when they repeat what we did for the initial screens and panels often. Is the Ortho Vision meant for small labs? Sounds above like it isn't but I will check out the link. Thanks again!

Hey all, after some discussion with our Trans. Comm. Committee, I have been given the go=ahead to look at alternatives to our Echo. I was a long time Gel person so I don't mind doing this. I am wondering what options there are out there with the Ortho gel systems- the classic manual gel system won't work for us as it still requires quite a bit of hands-on time. The Provue is too big. I saw some promo materials on the new Ortho "workstation" but I am guessing that you still have to sit with it between incubation etc- its not fully automated right? Isn't there another gel based system out there that may be new or am I dreaming? This would be for a USA lab, not Europe which is always two steps ahead of us anyway. Thanks! PS, I don't want to call Ortho directly as I want to avoid the sales folks for now.

Yup, done that too! I also say "negative" to answer questions sometimes then say "no pun intended". No one gets that except other Blood Bankers

Great! Mine was a toss up between #46, 42, 28 and 10. Still all true after all these years......

Yes Tricore, we are inspected by JCAHO but I don't think they ever come to the Lab since we are CAP and AABB accredited also. No signs of anyone doing traceability back to the lab yet. We do have existing policies on blood administration and patient ID for that matter and they are fine but the annual competency/retraining documentation is dismal. I tried to reach out to the head of Nursing myself to see if I could offer up any assistance (like talking at Nursing meetings and running a mini-refresher from the BB end of things like I used to do in my last job and where I was received with open, welcoming arms) and was told that I was not to contact the Nursing Admin dept on my own, have to work through my Lab Director. Yikes. How do you spell DING

Welcome! You may find that this site is very, very useful!

OK, I will check that out, thanks. Its not something I want to be held accountable for as our Nursing Admin does not take this seriously and I hate being held responsible for nagging them. Oh well, welcome to Monday

We had a CAP inspection last year and got dinged because Nursing Administration did not have records of nurses participating in annual Transfusion Administration training (CAP TRM 41025). This year AABB is coming and I cannot find a comparable AABB Standard that says that the Blood Bank must ensure that the nurses receive their annual training on blood product administration.. Does anyone know if this exists? Thanks

This is not happy news. I don't want to go tossing reagents after two weeks especially when we use the same Series 4 Anti-D in tube and on the Echo and daily QC always is very acceptable with both methods. If its something to do with the Echo CMT plates, well I sure as heck don't want to go tossing those every two weeks- the expense would be ridiculous. Weird is a great word and what bothers me is that after blaming the API samples or the patient samples, eventually we will receive some kind of bulletin from Immucor about this problem??? I do like working with them and find them very responsive but it is always, always "a problem with your samples". I don't buy it.

We also usually have the "more sensitive" issue with the Echo versus the backup tube method but coincidentally, we just had a problem with API proficiency testing samples where the Echo results were negative or equivocal, when repeated where the same or maybe 1+. . The tech doing the PT exercise instinctively decided to check the results against the tube and got very strong positives for the Anti -D samples. I alerted Immucor about this because the last survey had a similar problem. They asked me if the samples in question were possibly weak D's but we don't check for weak D except on cord bloods so I didn't run any weak Ds.

Phil and Malcolm neglected to mention his almost run in with the law as he almost committed a federal felony (if that's even a term). But all was well, we escaped lunch with no signs on fingerprints left on the mailbox disguised as a trash container. HaHa, what happens in Providence, stays in Providence. For those of you who will get to see and hear Malcolm in Las Vegas later this year, be prepared for a wonderful, and interesting talk. He is one cool and smart dude!! I look forward to your next visit Malcolm! Nice to see Pathlabtalk up and running again also. When its down, its like a piece of my work day is missing.....

OMG Malcolm, I see that this Las Vegas conf will be held at the Mirage- WOW!!! Awesome place that's for sure!!! Be sure to reserve yourself a ticket to a Cirque de Soleil show at the Bellagio while you are there.