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Gel packs or ice bags?


Jessica A

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Are you using freezer gel packs, freezer blocks, bags of melting ice or something else in your igloo plymate coolers?

 

I'm having issues with 2 gel packs dropping the units below freezing and 1 not getting the bags below 6C.  I really don't want to switch to actual ice for many reasons.

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We didn't have very good luck with our Igloo coolers holding temp. so we always used plenty of wet ice. Could have been the specific cooler type that was the problem, however.

Our current coolers are Credo and they use cooler inserts (with different liquids inside) that are specific for the temp maintained. The inserts for red cells are conditioned in the refrigerator. The inserts for platelets are conditioned at 22C. As long as someone doesn't leave the lids of the coolers open and remove the tops of the inserts, they will hold temp for 8 hours easily. (When I validate them I let the data logger run for 24 hours and they are all still holding temps at the end of that time.)

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9 minutes ago, AMcCord said:

We didn't have very good luck with our Igloo coolers holding temp. so we always used plenty of wet ice. Could have been the specific cooler type that was the problem, however.

Our current coolers are Credo and they use cooler inserts (with different liquids inside) that are specific for the temp maintained. The inserts for red cells are conditioned in the refrigerator. The inserts for platelets are conditioned at 22C. As long as someone doesn't leave the lids of the coolers open and remove the tops of the inserts, they will hold temp for 8 hours easily. (When I validate them I let the data logger run for 24 hours and they are all still holding temps at the end of that time.)

Are you using the ones that look just like an igloo cooler?  I'm wondering if the cooler is basically the same but the little containment unit being the difference maker.  Do they sell replacement inserts?  Can you give me the specific product you are using and if you don't mind, how much each one cost for you?  Did you by them from the company directly or was there a third party medical vendor you used?

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On 12/13/2019 at 9:49 AM, Jessica A said:

Are you using the ones that look just like an igloo cooler?  I'm wondering if the cooler is basically the same but the little containment unit being the difference maker.  Do they sell replacement inserts?  Can you give me the specific product you are using and if you don't mind, how much each one cost for you?  Did you by them from the company directly or was there a third party medical vendor you used?

We are using the Credo ProMed line rather than the ones that look like the Igloo cooler. The ProMed inserts for the smaller coolers are cubes w/ a lid (TIC). The outer nylon shell has a vacuum sealed dense foam insert w/ lid that the TIC fits into. The entire TIC goes in the refrig for the red cell transporter. The entire cube for the Plt transporter sits on a shelf at room temp (monitored). We also have large coolers in the ProMed line that have individual liquid filled 'slabs' that build the TIC cube in the cooler (separate pieces for 4 sides, top and bottom).

We chose the ProMed line because the nylon shells have shoulder straps plus a short strap over the lid to make carrying them easier. We send quite a lot of blood product across our campus to a cancer center and wanted to find something that would work well for them. They are also OK for the ED and MTPs on the floors. That nylon outer shell would not work well for surgery - can't be cleaned as well/easily as a hard shell on the Igloo type. (We don't send blood products to the OR in coolers.) I suspect the Credo igloo type cooler would hold temp well. It looks like they have an insert similar to the ProMed line, but we haven't tried one of theirs. Our Igloo types were not Credos.

Replacement inserts are available. The vacuum sealed inserts have an expiration date, so they must be replaced every 4 (?) years. We ordered ours from Pelican BioThermal. I clicked on the 'contact us' button on their website and someone in sales got back to me with the information I needed. Credo coolers are expensive. I believe that the small one (holds 2 RC) cost us over $400 in 2017. We ordered an extra TIC for each cooler, so once we get a cooler back from the cancer center we can sanitize the cooler, swap TICs and send out blood for another patient.  The nylon shells are still holding up very well and I haven't yet needed to replace a TIC or insert because of damage or temp failures.

If/when I add more coolers, I am going to look at MaxQ. They prices have been lower than Credo in the past. I've been in contact with their sales people directly. They are coming out with some combo coolers that look great for MTPs - wheels and a separate platelet pouch. They have a very basic cooler that we might use when we transfer red cells with patients that was less than $200 when I priced it last. If one of those didn't make its way home we wouldn't be out as much money as if we lost a Credo cooler. MaxQ coolers also have an exterior that would be easy to clean.

 

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22 minutes ago, AMcCord said:

We are using the Credo ProMed line rather than the ones that look like the Igloo cooler. The ProMed inserts for the smaller coolers are cubes w/ a lid (TIC). The outer nylon shell has a vacuum sealed dense foam insert w/ lid that the TIC fits into. The entire TIC goes in the refrig for the red cell transporter. The entire cube for the Plt transporter sits on a shelf at room temp (monitored). We also have large coolers in the ProMed line that have individual liquid filled 'slabs' that build the TIC cube in the cooler (separate pieces for 4 sides, top and bottom).

We chose the ProMed line because the nylon shells have shoulder straps plus a short strap over the lid to make carrying them easier. We send quite a lot of blood product across our campus to a cancer center and wanted to find something that would work well for them. They are also OK for the ED and MTPs on the floors. That nylon outer shell would not work well for surgery - can't be cleaned as well/easily as a hard shell on the Igloo type. (We don't send blood products to the OR in coolers.) I suspect the Credo igloo type cooler would hold temp well. It looks like they have an insert similar to the ProMed line, but we haven't tried one of theirs. Our Igloo types were not Credos.

Replacement inserts are available. The vacuum sealed inserts have an expiration date, so they must be replaced every 4 (?) years. We ordered ours from Pelican BioThermal. I clicked on the 'contact us' button on their website and someone in sales got back to me with the information I needed. Credo coolers are expensive. I believe that the small one (holds 2 RC) cost us over $400 in 2017. We ordered an extra TIC for each cooler, so once we get a cooler back from the cancer center we can sanitize the cooler, swap TICs and send out blood for another patient.  The nylon shells are still holding up very well and I haven't yet needed to replace a TIC or insert because of damage or temp failures.

If/when I add more coolers, I am going to look at MaxQ. They prices have been lower than Credo in the past. I've been in contact with their sales people directly. They are coming out with some combo coolers that look great for MTPs - wheels and a separate platelet pouch. They have a very basic cooler that we might use when we transfer red cells with patients that was less than $200 when I priced it last. If one of those didn't make its way home we wouldn't be out as much money as if we lost a Credo cooler. MaxQ coolers also have an exterior that would be easy to clean.

 

Thank you for the info.  I think I'll contact the company to get a quote on their hard side coolers or see if they will sell me the inserts separately.  I tried the MaxQ MTP cooler and couldn't get it to validate.  The FFP went in fairly warm and that side never came down to 1-6C.  The red cells quickly went up above 1-6C.  We don't keep thawed FFP on the shelf so anything for our massives is thawed at time of order and doesn't get a chance to get refrigerated before it goes out.  I would think it would work great if the FFP starts at closer to 10C.  I was super bummed that I couldn't get it to work.  The only option would be to try to convince my techs to pull the FFP from the bath sooner and I don't think I would get great compliance.

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1 hour ago, Jessica A said:

Thank you for the info.  I think I'll contact the company to get a quote on their hard side coolers or see if they will sell me the inserts separately.  I tried the MaxQ MTP cooler and couldn't get it to validate.  The FFP went in fairly warm and that side never came down to 1-6C.  The red cells quickly went up above 1-6C.  We don't keep thawed FFP on the shelf so anything for our massives is thawed at time of order and doesn't get a chance to get refrigerated before it goes out.  I would think it would work great if the FFP starts at closer to 10C.  I was super bummed that I couldn't get it to work.  The only option would be to try to convince my techs to pull the FFP from the bath sooner and I don't think I would get great compliance.

Depending on how many MTPs you deal w it may be prudent to have a FP thawed at all times.  I worked in a very busy trauma center.   We always had a Jumbo fp (AB or A) thawed and ready to go out.  Since it was kept in the refrig it was already at temp.   I just validated some MaxQ boxes.  But I did not get the MTP box as I do not store plts in house.

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4 minutes ago, David Saikin said:

Depending on how many MTPs you deal w it may be prudent to have a FP thawed at all times.  I worked in a very busy trauma center.   We always had a Jumbo fp (AB or A) thawed and ready to go out.  Since it was kept in the refrig it was already at temp.   I just validated some MaxQ boxes.  But I did not get the MTP box as I do not store plts in house.

I wish we were at least big enough to keep platelets all the time but we also don't keep platelets in house unless we have a scheduled open heart or an actual transfusion order.  We do maybe 1 MTP every other month so we can't keep thawed FFP for that reason.  Did you get the regular maxQ coolers that are designed to hold I think 2 or 4 units?  I'm really concerned about how easy it is to accidentally freeze the red cells in our current coolers.

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4 hours ago, Jessica A said:

Thank you for the info.  I think I'll contact the company to get a quote on their hard side coolers or see if they will sell me the inserts separately.  I tried the MaxQ MTP cooler and couldn't get it to validate.  The FFP went in fairly warm and that side never came down to 1-6C.  The red cells quickly went up above 1-6C.  We don't keep thawed FFP on the shelf so anything for our massives is thawed at time of order and doesn't get a chance to get refrigerated before it goes out.  I would think it would work great if the FFP starts at closer to 10C.  I was super bummed that I couldn't get it to work.  The only option would be to try to convince my techs to pull the FFP from the bath sooner and I don't think I would get great compliance.

Thanks for the info on the MaxQ MTP cooler. We do keep liquid plasma on hand to issue with our first MTP cooler, but would switch to thawed plasma after that.

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  • 1 year later...

We have 6 of the MaxQ MTP coolers and they work very well for us - we run over 225 MTP per year with a Level 1 Trauma Center and High-Risk OB.  We keep liquid plasma and thawed plasma on hand and haven't had a problem with the validation.  Biggest issue was  OR runners  going up and down stairs with them and not banging themselves up. I liken it to parking at the airport with your roller bag and not bruising yourself getting into the terminal.

We also purchased the blood shippers and use them for inter-facility transport of RBC and plasma. We decided to go with the R-12 instead of the smaller R-10 (we couldn't get the validation where we needed it to be). We use Coleman coolers for platelets because the smallest of the blood shippers intended for platelets was the same color as the RBC shippers and didn't want any confusion.

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