Sharing the FFP and Cryo freezer with chemistry Dept.

[upatel]

Is it acceptable practice to store chemistry controls in the same freezer where cryo and FFP are stored?

[John C. Staley]

Some of the small rural facilities in our corporation have one refrigerator and one freezer. They are acceptable for blood products and everything else goes in them as well. So far no inspection agency has had any problems with it.

[adiescast]

I believe most agencies are accepting of storage sharing as long as there is adequate separation of the items. You don't want to risk spillage of reagents on your blood products or vice-versa. It's the same concept as storing autologous blood with routine blood. Make sure no mistakes can be made because of the way the storage area is set up.

[SandyR]

We just had a JCAHO inspector who did have an issue with this but only verbalized it. Our solution, which was acceptable to the inspector, was to keep the blood products on the top shelves and anything else on the lower shelves. Since blood bags are somewhat permeable this would ensure that if anything spilled before it froze it wouldn't contaminate any blood product.

[upatel]

Thanks to all of you