Blood Storage at Airport

[Buddysmom77]

Our facility recently acquired a fixed wing aircraft, and would like to store 2 O Negative Units at the airport. Does anyone here store blood at an airport?  If so, how are you monitoring your temperatures?  The crew is staying offsite from the airport and I'm worried about notification and response time for temperature alarm notifications.

[David Saikin]

you have to comply with all the storage regs. at the airport and in the air (unless you are going to leave the blood someplace in which case in the airplane would be satisfied by transport temps vs storage).

If you are taking the blood for possible transfusion you'll need the storage temps during the ride (not the transport temps).

Good luck with this.

[applejw]

We keep RBC and plasma on our helicopter using the Pelican Credos and a datalogger. Units are changed out every 24 hours or replaced when transfused and they keep extra sets of credo panels in the ER freezer to follow manufacturer IFU.  Dataloggers record temperatures every hour with an audible alarm to the user if the temperatures exceed 6C. Datalogger data is transferred to the Blood Bank for review and retention.  We are looking into keeping units with supervisor units for ground transport in 3 counties but that is still in the works.

If you can install an undercounter BB refrigerator at the airport with Wi-Fi temperature reporting and 7-day continuous chart recording, that may be another route to investigate. I have worked at a facility with remote storage at the heliport that was maintained by both ARC, hospital and air ambulance services.  All have to work together to meet requirements to ensure that blood products are maintained properly.