Providing antibody information to patients

[adiescast]

Does anyone provide information to their patients about the antibodies detected in their serum? If you do, what do you provide?

[David Saikin]

I provide a blood type card with the antibody(ies) identified and the date.

[Dawn]

We provide a card that is accompanied by a simple letter. The letter tells them the basics and suggests that they see their Dr. if they have questions.

[sgoertzen]

We are a pediatric hospital, so we send the family a simple letter and an antibody card for their wallet explaining that it is important that if their child is ever treated at a different hospital than ours, they need to show this card to the physician and nurse taking care of their child and ask them to make sure they relay this information to the laboratory blood bank at the new hospital.

[Mindy]

What kind of card is used and where do you get them?

[luhubert]

We provide a card (business card) with the antibody I.D. on it. We also give them their choice of a medic alert bracelet or necklace to wear that says:

St. Joseph

979-776-2404

I have antibodies

Tell blood bank

We recently got a call from another hospital who said an "old guy" had come in and insisted his nurse give the bracelet to the blood bank. We told them we knew him will and that he had an anti-E and anti-K that were both below detectable levels.

The person calling excused himself and in the background you could hear him yell: "come back here with that blood".

That bracelet may have saved our patient from a transfusion reaction.

[teri]

Dear Members,

Oh my goodness, I cannot believe that I have stumbled upon this site and it is directly related to my area of needs. I am Teri and I recruit rare antibody donors. These donors that you are sending cards to and letters to are the donors I so desperately need and would be thrilled for the opportunity to work with each and every one of your organizations to inform these donors that their blood/plasma is so desperately needed to help keep up with the demands of the transfusion blood typing kits. These donors could participate in my program and be instrumental in providing products to insure the integrity of the typing kits that are manufactured. There are many products that are in such short supply and some that are unattainable and it is difficult to keep up with the current needs. Any persons or organizations who would be interested in working with me please post and inform me how to contact you. The donors in my program receive many benefits, including travel, accomodations and compensation, in some cases, huge compensation. I am an independent company and cherish each and every one of my donors and personally make all arrangement for them myself. The donors always tell me that they are so grateful for the opportunity to participate in providing lifesaving products and are additionally pleased that they are compensated for their time and efforts spent traveling. But I am the one that is truly grateful for their participation because I was a recipient of an unsuccessful transfusion due to the lack of antibody plasma in my typing kit and it is my goal in life to do my best to prevent others from my experience.

In closing I would like to stress that patient confidentiality is of utmost importance to me and my program is designed to protect you from ever having any issues with confidentiality.

These antibody identified patients deserve to know that they are so important and that thir blood/plasma could be instrumental in preventing a no supply or low supply on the market. If there were more products available maybe it would help in bringing down the cost to the end users, which may be you.

I look forward to your posts.

Best Regards,

Teri

[Rosanne]

We usually give a card to a patient with antibodies. However, in a case where a patient no longer is positive on screening or a special case where the antibody only shows in ficin, a patient should be advised to wear an alert bracelet.

Good Post! Rosanne

[sgoertzen]

I went to Office Max and just bought plain white business cards on a sheet (perforated) that you can print up using your standard colored laser jet printer at work. I created a template for the sheet of business cards with our hospital logo (address and phone) and a place to hand-write the patient name, birthdate, medical record #, blood type and identified antibody and date. It was pretty easy and seems to work great! If you wanted to get more sophisticated, you could create each one in the computer and laminate it for your patient before you send it to them.

[jojo808]

Not sure if you are still active on this site but if you are willing to share could you send me a template of the card? My email is joann.pacheco@hawaiilabs.com

[mollyredone]

This is ours.  It's not that fancy.  Wish we could give out a medic alert necklace or bracelet!

 

antibody ID card.pdf

[Sandy Jo]

Here is another generic template we use with Avery Business card stock...

genericANTIBODY CARD TEMPLATE-BLOOD BANK.doc

[DebbieL]

We had the IT people create us a template with the hospital logo and lines to fill in for name, ABORH, ID Date and Antibody ID. A line stating to call Blood Bank. We print them on sheets of labels from the office store. We put them on white plastic cards that are used for our hospital badge. I go and beg a box from HR when I get low. One box will last us about 2 years. If HR stops feeling sorry for us and stops giving us boxes, I will probably use business cards. The plastic cards are sturdy so I hope they continue to slip a box to us as needed.

We send with a simple letter that states what the card is about and if they go to another hospital they need to present the card to nursing to give to BB. If they have questions or if they lose their card, they can call us. We send the card up to the floor if they are still in the hospital to give to the patient before they leave. If they have gone home, then we mail it to them.

This has worked for us for many years. We occasionally get a call because they think antibodies are some kind of weird disease the physician didn't tell them about.