I got into a bit of a debate today in a meeting with our IT regarding our blood bank module and wanted to see what others opinions are on what blood "issue" means. They were of the opinion that issue means the time the product is handed over to the nursing staff (collected), I disagreed as in my experience from working in the UK we consider issued the point at which the blood is assigned to the patient, crossmatched, labelled up etc and put in the fridge ready for collection. Collection is therefore as separate process not the same as issued. 

 I do notice however that in the CAP standards there is no mention of recording time of collection from the lab by the nursing staff, only the time of issue so wondered if in other parts of the world issue is considered the collection process? 

 

I agree with you 100%.  I also think that your word should be MUCH more important about anything to do with blood transfusion, than anyone in your IT, who, after all, are supposed to be there to support you (their only real raison d'etre) not to confound you.

I must respectfully disagree with Malcolm (a rare occurrence).  In my transfusion service we documented the time of issue as the time the blood product left the blood bank and became the responsibility of the nursing service.  Maybe this is one of those things where we have 2 countries separated by a common language.  

From Merriam-Webster

Definition of issue (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

1a: to put forth or distribute usually officiallygovernment issued a new airmail stampissue orders

b: to send out for sale or circulation : PUBLISH

cBritish : PROVIDE sense 1a, SUPPLY

 

There one and the same thing, the difference been in the UK the lab staff are not involved in the collection process like seems to be the requirement under CAP. For example we have remote fridges, when the lab staff put the units in the remote fridge ready for the nurses to collect this is issued. Does that not fit your definition above of distribute? But at this point it is still not collected by the Nurses and may stay in this fridge for upto 48 hours before return to the lab if not collected. When we "issue"blood in the UK it is made available for the nurses, they then complete the final checks and sign the blood out alone not together with lab staff.

In our BB system (Cerner) the blood status would first be considered Available, then Crossmatched, Dispensed (pick up by nursing), and presumed Transfused 30min after Dispense.  We do somewhat use Dispense and Issue interchangeably in some of our SOPs.   As far as when the blood is crossmatched and ready for pick-up, we would either say the blood is ready or crossmatched complete.

It seems that there is simply a difference in terminology here betwixt "collection" and "issue".  In the US (and perhaps some other countries), the term "issue" is for that process whereby the crossmatched unit is being sent out of the laboratory for transfusion.  (In our lab, a tagged unit  in the blood bank waiting for issue is in a "crossmatch" status.)    Here, "issue" reflects what the Lab department is doing.  

I could see the use of "collection" as that is what the transfusing department is doing when they pick up a unit--collecting a unit from the blood bank. But here the only thing we use the term "collection" for would be in acquiring a specimen for testing.

A particular country's regulatory agency would be careful to use terminology that matches practice in that country.

Scott

I would suggest considering "issue" as the time the product is out of controlled temperature.

 

We use issue to mean dispensing the product to staff who will take it to the patient's location.  We don't use the term collected except in the context of drawing specimens.  I suspect this is a British English vs. American English 'issue.'

We issue the product when it is released for transfusion.  As stated above, when the unit is tagged and ready to be signed out it is in crossmatched status.

I'm not sure if this is semantics or apples and oranges.

On ‎12‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 7:56 AM, SMILLER said:

It seems that there is simply a difference in terminology here betwixt "collection" and "issue".  In the US (and perhaps some other countries), the term "issue" is for that process whereby the crossmatched unit is being sent out of the laboratory for transfusion.  (In our lab, a tagged unit  in the blood bank waiting for issue is in a "crossmatch" status.)    Here, "issue" reflects what the Lab department is doing.  

I would ditto this, and add that after a certain amount of time (I don't recall how long), the unit electronically will move from "issued" status to "presumed transfused" status. So in our system, "issue" is the time of time stamp and sending it out of the Blood Bank. Whenever the care team wants to spike it is their problem.