DCORRELL

DebbieL - we are not inspected by CAP, and actually our NYS Inspector is pushing the IQCP - so it is pretty much QC two levels every day of use or develop IQCP. And when I talked to my Immucor Sales rep he stated that inspectors could and may interpret "may QC" with "must qc"... so we will be QCing our panels, I just haven't decided at what interval. Its the only IQCP plan I have to do.

I am the supervisor of a blood bank that supports a Level 3 NICU. Currently we get random donor platelets in for our nicu babies and centrifuge them to volume reduce and as the doctors say "concentrate" the platelets. I think the reason we volume reduce is that we generally get only type O platelets. I am interested in getting away from the random donors and moving towards using pheresis but am curious what other hospitals do. We do not have a sterile docking station so each dose would use a whole pheresis until I can obtain a sterile docking station. Does anyone still concentrate the concentrates? My NICU Docs actually request concentrated doses. Danielle correll

Where did you see this? What exactly does that mean? My facility is just starting bi-weekly IQCP meetings to start developing our game plan. I am a new supervisor so this is all a little overwhelming to me. As far as panel cells go: I did get both my panocell 20 and panel A/B package inserts off their respective websites. According to the package inserts you should "periodically" check the panels with weak antibodies, and immucor suggests testing with antibodies that are "likely to deteriorate" like LeA -- Does anyone do this kind of testing at their facility? The hospital I work per diem at said they used to that a long time ago but it wasn't required so they stopped. Danielle Correll