07schrsam

Hello, I was told today that our facility is going to begin doing laryngectomies. Does anyone know how many units of blood this surgery can use, routinely? Thank you

I tend to lean away from the cell washer since it is back to working fine. There could be some static....we are in Northwest ohio where winter is upon us. Thanks for the comments.

If anyone had any input on this, I would love the hear it. We recently had some trouble and I was wondering if someone could help me. Our cells washer stopped working. We began washing Du's and Antigen testing by manual means. On the third wash, techs were reporting that the cell buttons were not properly froming and the cells were 'stuck' to the side of the tubes. If you were to add AHG, the testing performs as expected and the cell buttons formed. I had no reports prior to the cell washer not forming buttons. Initially this was on anti-D from Ortho so I got some Immucor anti-D in and it worked! So, I blamed Ortho's anti-D and called the issue resolved. Then, a tech reported that her Kell typing was not washing correctly and cells were washing away (sticking to side) on third wash. Therefore, I moved to thinking there was a problem with the saline. We buy non-buffered saline with preservatives. I called the technical support for Cardinal Saline (that we were using) and they said there was reports of this happening but didn't give suggestions on resolution. I tested the pH of the saline and it was barely a 5.0, which I sought as way to acidic. Therefore, I got some new, buffered, saline in. Initially everything was working fine with it until our weekly supernantant checks where we just wash check cells with saline once, and examine for a cell button and supernatant appearance. We found the new, buffered saline, is now causing cells to 'stick to the side' and not form good button. We still had our old saline sitting around and now all testing is working and its supernantant checks look great on it. WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?!? What I know. RPMs were good on all centrifuges. I used different manufactuers of Check Cells to rule out a bad lot. I used different tube types in testing to rule out 'contaminated' tubes. The only thing I feel it could be is the saline. Thoughts? Thanks!

Thank you everyone. Good input.

Can someone who uses softbank tell me how they control patients arm bands? Who cuts them off and and how do they know when to cut them off? Currently we have a sql report that goes out to nursing units and it displays patients that expire that day (however the time is not specific). Therefore, I have nurses cutting off bands before they are really past the 72 hour window which runs us into problems. Anyone have a good system that works for them??? Thanks!