amount of time to keep platelet products tagged

[gksapp]

How long do you keep platelet products tagged/reserved for a patient after order?

We are a teaching pediatric hospital with a very active Hematology/Oncology group which includes a stem cell transplant center. Our neonatal intensive care unit also uses a lot of platelets.

I think that we should keep them for the three days or the life of the unit, whichever comes first.

thanks,

Jerry Sapp

[adiescast]

We are also a teaching hospital. We do not put a tag on the platelets until the nursing area is ready to transfuse them. We do keep a count of the orders that have come in to make sure we have enough inventory to cover them. If we have a patient with a special requirement, we will set that platelet "aside" (on another drawer of the rotator) so we don't inadvertantly use it for someone else that day. If a platelet is tagged and not used within several hours, we call the nursing area to remind them and find out if they are going to transfuse. If they are not, we release the unit for use by another patient. We can't afford to have platelets expiring because they were tagged for a patient for three days!

[Lcsmrz]

We tag them when we get an "issue" order. Unless it's SPRCA- or HLA-matched, it's first-come, first-serve at our discretion.

We send orders from the non-oncology physician who wants platelets "on hold at all times" to the Pathologist ...

[skopti]

We tag them when they are received from the supplier. If not used for the intended recipient within 12 hours they wil be given to a different patient.

[sgoertzen]

We are also a pediatric hospital with an extensive oncology and surgery department. We coordinate our platelet orders and inventory by logging this info on a write-on/wipe-off white board any orders placed by physicians for platelets (even the ones scheduled for an outpatient txn a week from now). We've drawn a grid with colored tape on this board so there are 5 titled columns to log on each row the patient's name, product needed, order date, expected txn date, and current status (i.e. "to be ordered", "ordered", "on rocker"). When ordered platelets arrive, we do tag them with a piece of tape with the patient name as we place them on the rocker, BUT, we often juggle products around to ensure we use up the shortest date platelets first. We don't "assign" the platelet in the computer to the patient and tag it with the official computer generated tag until we receive the order to issue the platelets. The techs are diligent in referencing and updating this inventory board throughout all shifts of the day. We rarely expire platelets. We also keep track of our special ordered phenotypically matched units for our chronically transfused hematology kids on this board as well.