Looks like my Blood Bank will now be taking on tissues. Ugh.

Is anyone currently using SoftBank for tissues (inventory, issuing, etc)? And if so, what is your experience?

We handled tissues years ago before we were on Soft.  Our transplant service took it over.  They have their own freezer and one of the OR nurses is responsible for monitring the freezer and the tissue inventory.  In Soft, you could set them up as Rx products.  What ever you do, make sure they don't order products and dump them in your freezer without you knowing about it.  I had a tech doing morning temps one day and she opened the big minus 80 chest freezer and there was a whole femur inside!    

 

We handled tissues years ago before we were on Soft.  Our transplant service took it over.  They have their own freezer and one of the OR nurses is responsible for monitring the freezer and the tissue inventory.  In Soft, you could set them up as Rx products.  What ever you do, make sure they don't order products and dump them in your freezer without you knowing about it.  I had a tech doing morning temps one day and she opened the big minus 80 chest freezer and there was a whole femur inside!

Thanks Bev! We'll have all tissues within the Blood Bank where the OR staff has no access. They're gonna LOVE that because now they like to pick and choose which tissue/bone they want.

Thanks for the suggestion about the Rx products: I'm going to look into that; that might help me.

We have live donor femoral heads and we issue them like you would any other product that doesn't need a group. They are supposed to phone ahead and give us notice but they usually turn up and demand it there and then

We've used SoftBank for tissues for a few years.  They're treated as a noncellular blood product.  We did have to make each one an O Neg.  They are selected, issued, transfused just like any product,  which makes tracking very easy.  It is cumbersome when they want 10 cervical spacers.

I wonder if you could make it an Rx product more like RhoGam and deliver it that way instead of a blood product in SoftBank. Then you would not need an ABO/Rh.

I don't know.  When we set tissues up, SCC discussed making each tissue an action, but for some reason we didn't go that way.  The OR has since purchased a system from UDI which tracks all tissue, human or not, and mechanical devices also.  This works GREAT, so SoftBank is moot.

We are going Live with SoftBank in January '14. I had considered tissues but I think some of the lot numbers are too long than the number of characters allowed so we decided to keep it a paper process since we don't get that many. I think had I done it, it would have been as an action, not a blood product.

I issue/store/track/order/charge all frozen tissues. Our numbers are small so I track them in an Access data base set up specifically for that purpose - works well.

I don't know.  When we set tissues up, SCC discussed making each tissue an action, but for some reason we didn't go that way.  The OR has since purchased a system from UDI which tracks all tissue, human or not, and mechanical devices also.  This works GREAT, so SoftBank is moot.

Could you elaborate on the UDI product?

 

Thanks,

Linda

 

Could you elaborate on the UDI product?

 

Thanks,

Linda

 

http://www.championmt.com/products/uditracker-manage-track-all-implantable-devices/

Looks pretty good.

With UDI we transfer the products to the OR, then if not used the OR transfers them back to the BB. In Soft we selected the products to a patient, then issued them to the OR. Maybe you can just transfer them to the OR without selecting them. That would eliminate a step.

The OR purchased UDI to help them track other tissues, not just human, and other not tissue implants. It seems to be a win win situation for everyone. The company is very cooperative, takes care of building the products, etc. They also keep track of all the licenses of the tissue companies.

Our final decision I think is to build them as blood products (with O Neg blood types).  We tried setting them up as an Rx product, but there were too many things that we have to document that we couldn't find a place for.  And we needed the other aspects of the transfusion part (quarantine, recalling a unit, unit comments, etc) to work for tissues the same as blood.  So a more extensive build than we thought...

One more question for those that use SoftBank for tissues.  We took an inventory of what we have in-house and there are 83 different types of tissues.  Oh jeez...does that seem like a crazy amount to anyone, or do we order way too many types of tissue here?