Digitizing the panel book

[Xavier]

Around my lab, it has become an accepted practice to take long periods of time to search through the rather large binder of new and expired panels. This is done for the use of finding selected cells for rule outs as well as searching for high frequency negatives, and has become quite the hassel. As one of the younger techs in the lab, as well as a child of technology, i was wondering if there would be a way to digitize the panel book and to make a proper search program for this newly formed database. I understand the upkeep would be a little high as panels are routinely cycled in and out, but i believe the time saved while searching would outway the upkeep time. I was wondering if anyone here has either attempted this, has an idea on how to attempt it, or even has a working model?

[Cliff]

Xavier,

Welcome to BloodBankTalk.

Interesting idea.

I've considered developing a commercial product to do something similar. I planned to also develop it so you could create and store your panels online.

This would take considerable cooperation from the panel manufacturers.

This product is at least two years out from now, we are working on a new product and submitting it to FDA for 510(k) clearance this fall.

If you are comfortable with Microsoft Access, it wouldn't be too hard to develop such a tool; however, without the data from the panel manufacturers, the info will need to be manually input. I don't think that scanning is a good option as that technology is very unreliable. Using this technique, you could also set panels to expire at a certain time, and deplete individual cells or entire panels.

[Xavier]

Thank you for the swift reply Cliff.

Microsoft access was my first idea for this project, since for some reason i've never noticed to barcodes on the panels! Personaly I'm familiar enough to probably handle the initial data entry for our current book, but I'm worried about the buy-in from my fellow technologists before I even consider the panel manufacturers. Like most large hospitals, we have a large generation gap in our lab, where I believe if I complete this project it will forever just be my project. That means I'll be in charge of doing all the upkeep, and when I eventually leave the program will fall to ruin.

Why is it that scanning isn't viable? I feel as thought that would be a lot easier when I try to pass this program off.

[Seveets]

Ran into this:

http://antibodycheck.com/index.html

[galvania]

I'm a bit of a computer dinosaur but I think the following should work

Create a simple Excel table where you you write in the name of the panel cell (manufacturer, date, cell number, whatever) and then write in all the antigens present (e.g for an R1R1 Dia+, simply write in - with one antigen per excel cell - D C e Dia). Then when they're all in, 'print' the table into pdf format. Then when you want a cell that is, for example, Dia+, type Dia in the pdf 'search' function, and all your Dia positives will be highlighted

[Seveets]

Ortho-Clinical already have their antigrams electronically.

www.eantigram.com and combined with

http://www.rowny.com/AntigenPlusAbID.html

all the work is done for you

[Mary]

How do you like it? Do the techs like it?

[OPUS104]

We do this in-house. The process takes about 10 minutes start to finish when entering a new panel. We have all 3 panels we use on seperate sheets. You can select pos. neg or all for each antigen. We scan into microsoft then import into excel. Some corrections are needed (and well documented) then the scanned anagrams are printed and checked for match. The +, 0 is easy to check as we shade all +s and hold under an original anagram on a light viewer. Two techs check each step (edit and +,0) that did not do the entering. Entering/edit = about 10min. checking = about 4 mins each. We absolutely love it. Need cells that are E,c and S negative but Fya +, just click click print. We cycle out the outdated every 3 monthe when we throw the panels out.

[ksmith]

We us Antigen Plus. It took a little getting use to, but we really like it. It is a real time saver.

[zz243]

I have used Antigen Plus as well.

It is very helpful but I understand that it is costly.

[Xavier]

Thank you so much for all the replies everyone! I've been looking around some of our old SOPs and meeting notes(I've only been working here for two years) and I guess this has gotten some support in the past. Antigen Plus seems to be the most polished, but that probably translates to the most expensive. I'll just have to do more research.

OPUS, is there any reason your lab decided to use Excel over a more database oriented program, such as Access?

[KathleenSL]

We have used Antigen Plus for years. It can be put on a network and can be accessed from multiple workstations at once. In addition to uploading Immucor and Medion panels to the database, we manually input our frozen rare reagent rbcs into the database. As a reference laboratory, we run more "selected cell" panels than routine commercial panels. We have found the time saved in creating these panels and the elimination of transcription errors well worth the cost of the program.

[Mary]

Who makes Medion panels?

[zz243]

I believe Medion used to be Dade Behring.

[webersl]

You could use the AutoFilter function in Excell to create a selected cell panel. But, you do have to mess with getting it into excell...