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Recipient antibody cards


ANORRIS

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I designed my own cards to send to customers when we identify an antibody.  I used Word to design an entire page of cards and print them on business card stock.  The front of the business card has company logo, our laboratory identification and a statement notifying the patient to share the info with their personal physician.  The back of the card has form fields for the patient name, ABO/Rh, antibody/-ies identified and the date the card was typed up.  The Avery website gave me quite a few ideas, but I ended up just opening a Word document and using the label template for the appropriate business card stock to design my cards.

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We've toyed with the idea for quite a few years but have never implemented it. We've seen some come in with patients but most of them are presented to a nurse, who has NO idea that lab should be informed - even when the card says so. A couple of times we've been informed after blood was running..."by the way, the patient gave us a little card that says he/she has an antibody. Is that important?" Some of the patients don't think about showing them to anyone until they are almost ready to go home. Our best luck has been with coaching patient's to tell the phlebs they see that they have an antibody or a problem when they get blood. Not saying that the card is a bad idea - it's not. We appreciate them when we see them. Just saying it is not magic.

Jeanne's idea would be a simple solution. Does your hospital have an in house forms developer? If so, they would be able to help you come up with a very professional looking card with your facility's logo.

 

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That's what we did-took a basic hospital business card and changed it and put a place for the info on the back.  We have had a few faxed to us from the ED.  We have been doing this for almost 4 years.  Each month I print a report of antibody patients and send a letter and the card to them at home.  I make a copy and put it in their antibody file. 

antibody ID card.pdf

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On 11/18/2016 at 6:32 AM, mollyredone said:

That's what we did-took a basic hospital business card and changed it and put a place for the info on the back.  We have had a few faxed to us from the ED.  We have been doing this for almost 4 years.  Each month I print a report of antibody patients and send a letter and the card to them at home.  I make a copy and put it in their antibody file. 

antibody ID card.pdf

This card closely resembles the one we send out.

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I mail the patient a business size card with our 2 hospital logos, our contact information, patient name, antibody and blood type on it.  I also put a warning in the allergy section of our IS to call BB and why.  I also document on the BB history side of our Meditech the  date card sent and OE warning so we know not to sent another one or put the allergy warning in.

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2 hours ago, macarton said:

I mail the patient a business size card with our 2 hospital logos, our contact information, patient name, antibody and blood type on it.  I also put a warning in the allergy section of our IS to call BB and why.  I also document on the BB history side of our Meditech the  date card sent and OE warning so we know not to sent another one or put the allergy warning in.

That would be nice to be able to document it in the patient's chart so any provider at the hospital could see it if the patient returned.  I don't think I have access to that, although we do have Meditech.  I put a copy of the letter we send and the card in the patient's antibody folder and check that before sending another one.  If they develop additional antibodies, I send another letter and card.  I do this once a month.

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On 11/23/2016 at 0:42 PM, macarton said:

..........  I also document on the BB history side of our Meditech the  date card sent and OE warning so we know not to sent another one or put the allergy warning in.

I have access to a patient alert in the EMR and we've set up a Blood Bank alert that is flagged as high priority. Any time we have a patient with special needs (antibody, irradiation required, Hgb S negative, etc), I make an entry in the alert. I have a series of canned statements that I can copy and paste, like "patient has 2 antibodies, please allow X hours additional time for testing" or " patient has antibody, blood must be ordered from supplier, please allow X hours additional time" or.... and always ending with 'contact blood bank'. You get the idea. This is the same location where sleep apnea warnings, travel outside the US and other important issues are documented. You don't get many characters, so the message is brief. The idea is that anyone who is caring for the patient is going to check those alerts. Does everyone look at those?........probably not, but we do get phone calls asking if we have blood available for that patient. The calls are usually made immediately before surgery or the need to transfuse, which isn't solving the problem. Work in progress. And we are going to be switching to EPIC mid-summer 2017 so we'll be starting all over again with the alert idea concept.

Our new medical director had the idea to start adding a pathology report in the EMR that gives the same information as I put in the patient alert area, though spelled out in a little more detail. Our hope is that the physician might read that information. We don't know how many of our phone calls are initiated because the physician has read that report or because the nurse has read the patient alert. Either way, it's a start.

Wouldn't be having fun at work without challenges, right?!! :strong:

Edited by AMcCord
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I designed my own simple card that I either mail to the patient or deliver to the patient if they are still an inpatient. My design is very simple in that on one side of the card is the hospital name, address, phone number, fax number, and the statement to present to the person drawing their blood. On the reverse side has the patient name, blood type, antibody(ies) identified, and the date.  I just buy business card stock from our office supply and on one side of the card print the front side of the card, and on the opposite side I print the reverse side of the card. I print the number that I need, then turn the stock over and print the same thing again, that way I get 10 cards that are printed on both sides of the business card.

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