Does anyone have a good method for validating a pneumatic tube system for blood transfer?  We only use ours to send units to the OR.  I have heard that this may need to be validated.  Any advice??

Thanks

Michelle

If I remember correctly AABB has a book on the validation of pneumatic tube systems for the transport of blood products.  It was very thorough and in MY opinion overly and unnecessarily complex.  We validated ours before it was available by simply timing the transport and checking the temp on arrival.  If I remember correctly we may have even let the units used settle out to see if there was any excessive hemolysis visible but I'm not sure on that since is was 16 years and 3 jobs ago.    Since we were transporting to every nursing unit in the facility we were most concerned with those farthest from the blood bank.  We were fortunate to be able to do this prior to moving into the new facility which made life much simpler.