I have a question for you all and I would like some insight if anyone knows of any regulations here in the US that speak directly to this or not.

 

I previously worked for ARC in their reference lab.  When we did antigen negative labeling, it was a manual method, meaning a tie tag with written WBN and antigens.  When we completed the tagging, another tech had to review the tag to the testing and that the tag was attached to the right unit with the right testing and document that review.

 

I now work for a large hospital where it is still all a manual process, however the only thing that is reviewed is that the testing is put into the LIS correctly before the unit is issued.  The testing itself is not reviewed until a supervisor or specialist reviews it which could be after the unit is issued and there is no step in the procedure that speaks to reviewing that the correct testing was recorded on the tag and that the correct tag was attached to the correct unit.

 

In my mind, this is just like any other labeling, ie ABO, and I believe that there is a regulation that states that ABO/Rh manual labeling has to be reviewed by a second person, but this could just be an ARC thing.

 

Anyone know?

 

Thanks,

Jen

I don't believe that there is a reg specifically for this. In our hospital the tech performs the antigen testing, which prints on a separate sticker that gets applied to the unit of blood. At issue, two techs check all information on the bag including that the unit number on the antigen label matches the unit number on the bag, but would have no way to really check that the antigen typing was done or resulted correctly.