base line pretransfusion vitals

[Eileen]

I have been seeing nurses come to pick up blood components for patients with high fevers i.e. 101.2 and another with high pressures i.e. systolic of 176...I have not seen any transfusion literature that mentions recommended vital limits for transfusion.  What is the role of blood bankers with such findings? besides alerting the nurse to the high or abnormal vital? 

[OneMore]

This is an older post, but our process for this has varied (just a little) from hospital to hospital.  All of them had us hold the unit and contact the medical director for permission to release the unit, and this usually required a bit of a wait while they called the doctor to either refuse the release or to obtain enough information to feel comfortable with doing so.  Vitals that are out of recommended limits can create a situation where a transfusion reaction is missed, and therefore all transfusions for these patients had to be accepted by the medical director.  Your patient population may be such that this is not uncommon, and it should be addressed in your procedure regarding how to handle these cases.