Moving to new hospital

[jerriemc]

We are currently building a new hospital that will open June 2013. I wondered if anyone had any experience with this and could give me any pointers to help make the blood bank move smoother. I would appreciate any advice anyone has to offer. I also don't mind horror stories, because I wouldn't mind learning from them.

Thanks

[L106]

Just a few random thoughts.....

Plan for sinks and drains in convenient locations. Consider what equipment will be on the counters when you decided how high you want to install overhead cabinets. Think about traffic patterns (ie: traffic between workstations and blood refrigerators.) Flexibility in the work area (in case you purchase some automation in the future.) Stand-up and sit-down workstations.... different techs prefer different arrangements. Also, surely your architects will keep in mind Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines in your design. (Aging population and the current economy equates to an aging workforce...can you accomodate employees who use wheelchairs?)

I'm sure others can contribute many more useful suggestions.

[Gnapplec]

All I can say is be sure you will have lots and LOTS of outlets! Our lab is already short on electrical outlets from a remodel just 10 years ago.

[David Saikin]

We moved half of our BB ref to the new site and set them up 48 hrs before the move. We packed comonents on ice and moved them into the refs at the new site. Moved the rest of the ref, got them to temp and reallocated our components. The move was very smooth. Our new hospital was about 8 miles from the old site. We made sure to have plenty of outlets, most on emergency power. We had professinal movers do all the heavy stuff - all the rest we loaded in our cars and made multiple trips. Our Chem/Hem vendors gave us instruments to have at the old site so that we could still perform testing while our instruments were moved/calibarated, etc at the new site. We stopped admissions 2 days prior to the move and only emergent surgeries were available. Our neighboring hospitals picked up some of our patient work during those days.

[JEMarti]

Your biggest hurdle will be moving inventory. If you can get new refrigerators and freezers and have them up and validated then you are ahead of the game. When we moved from the 1st floor to the 5th floor (windows!) we had some new fridges that made the move easy. We also were able to set up benches in the new lab and smoothly transition testing.

If you are a trauma center make sure the hospital is planning to go on bypass while the labs move. The last thing you need is an unexpected trauma in the middle of the move. Major surgical cases should be easy to avoid with good communication to the departments you serve.

And if you are still in the planning stage the comment about outlets cannot be emphasized too strongly. You never have enough. Also, ports for network printers and terminals. You may not want a printer on a given bench today, but you might later and it is easier to do before you move in.

[tbostock]

We moved to our new hospital in August 2011. We were closing two hospitals and moving both into one. It was exhausting, but exciting. I agree with all posts above, especially the electical outlets! Planning is key; write up a "move plan" with a timeline. It's a lot of work, and it will change day by day as you get closer, but it was invaluable on the move day.

For moving blood products, we had someone from our blood supplier ALL DAY to help us move the blood products...this is a big job and you will need help. We stocked a small supply at the new place, then when the last patient left, we moved the products over. We tried to reduce the number of frozen products a month or so before the move so that part was easier.

The one thing that surprised us was the amount of grief that the staff felt about leaving their old hospitals; remember that it will be an emotional day for them, and those feelings carried on for a few months.

[David]

Be ready to function at both sites while you move if at all possible. Last time we moved we had just moved one refrigerator and one work station and then got a Level I Trauma. Fortunately we had enough stuff at the new site to handle it there while we moved the rest of the stuff. We also had scheduled it around shift change so we had more staff available.

[Barbarakym]

We moved Dec, 2010. Do not forget that you should re-validate all equipment. TJC did come out and look at that documentation about 8 months later and we passed without complaint. I re-did all the centrifuges, cell washer, thawers as well as the refrigerator/freezer/plt incubator.

I am sure your plans are already in place for building, but if building is not already closed in you should look at electric and computer access as people stated. We had plenty planned and then due to project overruns alot of IS budget was cut and we lost 1/2 of everything. It hurts and we have to use power strips.... not good but all we have. It costs 3X more to add these lines once walls are complete.

When you set up your benches... do so with 5S standards. All your supplies for what you need right at hand. I was lucky to learn about this at place I worked before and set up my dept this way. Spagetti diagrams are good for this. All thawing stuff in one place. All stuff needed for issue in one place. Reference books where they will be looked at. Supplies stored at point of use. All this makes for a comfortable work place.

Everyone touched on product first. We did not have 2 freezers. We arranged empty freezer boxes from ARC (our provider) with dry ice to move stuff after we opened at new place. We had new stuff delivered to new place but kept in the box. They are good and validated from ARC for 24 hours (I believe if memory serves, but I did get this in writing)... UNTIL you open the box. We put thermometer inside and each time it had to be opened, we took temp (made a form) every 4 hours like any storage compartment. While we validated our freezer 24 hours post move before moving stock. If you have a freezer at old place and new place (as well as refrigerators) this can be avoided. We had double refrigerator. Freezer was our problem. Our solution was accectped in TJC inspection.

[Barbarakym]

Forgot to add. Patient records and crossmatched units. MUST have a plan for this. You do not want crossmatched units at one location and patient at another. Also if records are not on computer (ours was not---Cards), they need to be where the blood and patient is. We arranged to move patients via dept. We had a list and when nursing supervisor said ICU patients were leaving now... all blood and records from that dept was sent to new hospital. ETC. There was one snafuu.. but patient was stable and able to wait.. otherwise we would have done Emergency release.. cause starting over would have been more time than waiting for delivery. THIS part is very important and plan may be looked at by inspector also.

[jerriemc]

Thanks everyone for your input. JEMarti I loved the part about windows for your move. Windows are the one thing that everyone in the lab has asked for in our new hospital. I had never thought about the emotional aspect of the move, but I can see it. Several of our techs have been here over 20 years and never worked anywhere else. I really appreciate everyone's input and am going to use it for my planning. If anyone else have anything else to add please do, I could use all the help I can get.

[Brenda K Hutson]

Make sure your workstations are spacious! We ended up with more space in the Blood Bank of a new Hospital (previous), but the workstations were too small. Also, one of the main doors to the Lab was right by the Blood Bank Dept. I suppose one could argue that it was convenient for people picking up blood products (though we were going to eventually start tubing blood); however, it was an automatic door that was constantly opening and closing; making it very difficult to concentrate in such a critical department. And they had made it such that at 2 of the workstations, the Tech. would be sitting with their back to the door; so everytime the door opened, they had to turn around! I finally convinced managment to let the door stay open during the day; but for security reasons, it closed again at 8pm.

When moving, pack blood products as you would to ship (note:a non-Blood Bank Manager where I was, thought he could just tape the refrigerator doors shut and move the refrigerators with the blood in them; YIKES). The new Hospital had been built right next to the old; but still, you just don't do that!

Depending on what functions you perform (i.e. tube blood in pneumatic tube); make sure you are located close to the object.

Brenda Hutson

We are currently building a new hospital that will open June 2013. I wondered if anyone had any experience with this and could give me any pointers to help make the blood bank move smoother. I would appreciate any advice anyone has to offer. I also don't mind horror stories, because I wouldn't mind learning from them.

Thanks

[Eagle Eye]

I want to emphasize emergency power, ports and outlets. I would suggest emergency power for whole blood bank. Having many outlets is not enough but need to have enough circuits to have enough voltage. If you have 4 outlets from one circuit and the voltage(&/or amps) is not enough, you will be able to pulg only one referigerator in that outlet and other outlets will be useless (if you plug more equipments, it will trip!!!). Yes we have seen this.

If you have automation, make sure it is on emergency power. Right now we are have emergency power in blood bank but other areas of the lab doesn't have emergency power and they want to take some from blood bank....I do not let them touch it.. Same thing with data port, we are also running out of ports so make sure you have all of these X4 then your current need.

You want to design your station according to work flow. eg. issue, component prep, specimen accessioning, processing, IS crossmatch and reference work etc.... You do not need to keep student's station in the front, it can be set up in the back of the lab. Same thing with reference station....you do not want too much traffic where the techs are doing reference work.

Issuing station should be the first one and have a window or separation door so the staff picking up blood doesn't need to come in side the blood bank.

Do not forget the area for the paperwork....

OH I wish my hopital gives me new location so I can have brand new BLOOD BANK!!!!