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Extending platelet expiration date.


dcubed

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We are actually looking at the feasibility right now.  Did you see the article in the most recent Transfusion?  Great info!  We are a trauma center that is about two hour STAT delivery time from our supplier.  Additionally, our supplier charges $100 restocking fee when we rotate plts....  

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36 minutes ago, CarrieM said:

Additionally, our supplier charges $100 restocking fee when we rotate plts....  

OUCH -- that hurts. We were actually told by our supplier that rotating platelets was not efficient for them, and they would rather us let them expire on our shelf and give us credit. Does not seem like very good stewardship of the blood supply to me, but it was their choice.

I think something like this would be really valuable at my current facility considering we are keeping 6-8 platelets on our shelves at a time. We have heavy users in trauma, oncology and cardiac cases. Some nights we throw away four or five. Unfortunately today is my last day here but I'll be keeping an eye out for info to send to my supervisor about this.

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We are not looking into this because I believe in order to extend the shelf life of platelets to 7 days you have to be a registered/licensed facility with the FDA.  We transfer our short date platelets to our Trauma hospital who has a better chance of being able to use them before they expire.

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  • 5 months later...

Not knowing the exact details but I have to agree with GCloc.  Not just any facility can extend expiration dates on any pharmaceutical/blood product unless they are licensed through the FDA plus you have written SOP's to back it up and be FDA inspected. Is there anyone out there in the blood center world producing 7 day platelets? I know it was done years back but Its gone back to the five-day.  

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4 hours ago, Gnapplec said:

Is there anyone out there in the blood center world producing 7 day platelets? I know it was done years back but Its gone back to the five-day.  

In order to have a 7 day platelet, it has to be tested on the day of transfusion, so I would think that it would be difficult for blood suppliers to manage that process.

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We started doing this in August.  We are 500 bed, FDA registered, trauma center.  We use the National Blood Exchange (AABB) for almost all our blood, everything is flown in and it's ours.  We've been able to decrease our orders since we've extended some platelets.  The cost savings is more than the cost of testing.

We did have to amend our FDA registration, the Verax PGD test is licensed by the FDA and this is allowed. 

The test is very  easy!  The harder part is getting the workflow down and when to test.  We don't test everything, we've set a minimum inventory and test accordingly. But we do hold onto expired 5 day plts to test if needed. 

 

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Hi Marianne,  we don't have a hard/fast rule about using day 6/7 over "in-dated" - it really depends on inventory, what's expected to come in, and orders.

The goal is to have 5 units ready to be transfused.  We usually test at 10-12pm, adding 24 hrs each time.  But if there are 4 on the shelf, no orders, and we're expecting a delivery of 3 more in a few hours...save the money, don't test, keep the platelets on the expired shelf available to be tested if needed.  Definitely judgment calls ... and comfort levels.

It's still a work in progress...

BTW - I love your beach picture!  Retiring there would be great!

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