Walk-in Blood Storage Refrigerators

[JClausen]

We are considering the installation of walk-in refrigerators for our blood inventory. Would like to hear from anyone with experience as to vendors of equipment for blood bank and pros/cons of going away from traditional blood storage equipment.

Thanks.

[donellda]

We have a walkin fridge for the storage of our inventory. It's pretty old so I'm not sure what vendor you could check with. Ours is cooled by water so if the water pressure drops we are in trouble. We do have another blood bank refrigerator for our crossmatched blood that we can use as a back up. I'm off for a few days so I will look to see who the manufacturer of our walkin is on Wednesday.

[rcurrie]

I am jealous! We usually have about 750-1000 units on hand. I would love to have walk-in storage. Good luck getting it! I have had walk-in storage before, and it is very nice when you are doing inventory or transferring components. We had regular blood bank refrigerator doors and shelves on the transfusion service side, and walk-in door on the back side.

BC

[donellda]

I love the walkin. The only problem with ours is that it is getting old, however, we have had fewer problems with our walkin than our double door.

[Colleen]

We have a bank of 3 walk-in refrigerators and 3 walk-in freezers (we're a blood center). The refrigerators are on one side of a walk way and the freezers are on the other. The hallway is refrigerated, and the doors are set up so only one opens at a time. This cuts down on the freezer frost alot. We got the idea from a Red Cross center in Southern CA. They're Jamison Mark IV units.