eric1980

We are looking at a victorious general here. Eoin, it must have taken a lot to convince your top management to make new doctors attend your obligatory training. We do not have that in my hospital, and so we do have such errors now and then. How long did you take to prepare and convince them?

So no answers yet for now... Will monitor this topic. ; )

It's a step back for the BB sector. =(

As I read the thread, questions lingers in my mind, until I read this post. So what if the thermometers don't agree, but both readings are still within the acceptable range. And what is the basis of using +/-1C or +/-2C to be acceptable? The equipment probe is actually situated against the inside back wall of the fridge/freezer and the thermometer couldn't get any where close to it. So it will be puzzling to me if they actually give me the same reading. So I guess we just have to state a reasonable difference and accept it as it is...

I am interested to take a look at the handouts for the presentation. Is it available for download in the AABB website?

There was a time there's 5 panels in the market?! I only have Diamed and Immucor panels in my BB... Would like to have at least one more if I can help it...

Drill... into my bone... No way, man! =S Anyway, I've never thought of the possiblility of doing a grouping with a bone marrow specimen...

A seminar I attended early this year had the speaker quoting this article! Brenda, if the fight is still on, you may want to print that article out to back yourself up. My hospital uses the patient's identity number AND full name as identifiers.

I can't help but feel that it's not the BBers or the lab people of the departing management who refuse to share medical records, but is the top management of the departing hospital who refused to. But why is it so, we can only guess.

Malcom, my sentiments exaclty!!!!!!! The keywords in my mind is "school of thoughts"!!! If you are right here before me, I'm gonna buy you a latte!

^This is exactly what I talked about in my previous post in this topic. If we harp on the issue of pragmatism, then we wouldn't get anything done, and it will certainly not help anyone. But if we have a group of people who have the power to do it, and want to do it, then they can do it, and ultimately, it's our patients who will benefit. If we prevent a lethal transfusion, all costs will be justified. I am still curious what is the outcome of the situation faced by the topic creator.

I am on the other side of the planet from USA and my reagent cells are also flown in without being stored in ice. My check cells sometimes have a tendency of haemolysing and after washing and resuspending in Cell Stab, I find out that I end up with a lot lesser cells to use. Luckily my A1 cells and B cells do not appear to have any problems yet.

I thought you really got paid big bucks... *Is disappointed* >_> *Scoots away*

Of course they will ask you not to worry. -_-"

I didn't know that Immucor will have a problem with their quality. I thought since it's such a big international company, there should be quality assurance in place! This thread really told me things that I wouldn't have know. I just printed out the letters for reading pleasure in my BB.

===Wall of textes below=== As some of us have said above, there are two ways we look at it: Practically - We all process specimens from patients who might have sought treatment at other facilities and if the screening is negative, we will not question the patient where else s/he had received transfusions before, and will issue blood as what we see in our own records. To share all patient information may not be worthwhile, just as why we do not do AGH crossmatch for all compatibility testing. Morally - If we have shared transfusion information of all patients, then there will be (almost) no chance that we will cause secondary immune response when their antibody titre levels go down beyong gel detectable range. I myself have spotted a case in my 3 years of BBing experience of a new patient to my hospital having positive antibody screen from my sister hospital, but showed negative when my colleague did the AbSc. If I do not have this information, we might cause serious transfusion reactions that are preventable. But to share transfusion records of all patients to all blood banks is a logistic nightmare. In my humble opinion, the way we should do to tackle this issue is to base our decisions based on morals. If we talk about practicability in every aspect of Blood Banking, then we are basically following SOPs and maintaining status quo as "it's not worthwhile to do this". The BB industry will then not progress forward as fast as if we follow the below... We should base on what to do based on morals. If we know what is good for the patients, and if we agree on it, we could work together to find out a practical solution! Then whatever practical issues which people preach will be rendered invalid. It's inpractical, because they are unwilling to do it for (perhaps) $ or selfish reasons or just because they are lazy. It's practical, because we are willing to do it, and we know it's for the patients. As what Clmergen said above, the patients "may not like the new hospital", but in my opinion, "the medicine is bitter". You may not like the taste of the medicine, but it's good for you. Parents, is this familiar to you? ; ) When problems arise, think of why you chose (if you chose) to be a blood banker, and base your decision on that.

I give a positive rating on the CAP assessment programmes. But then, it's the only one which I've ever tried. Haven't done the others before, so my opinion do not carry much weight...

The implementation has been very successful, and I do recommend other organisations, hospitals or not, to adopt this concept in their organisations. And the results of this concept will be the motivation to fellow colleagues to participate in it. It really makes things easier and more organised logistically. I still refer myself as a novice blood banker (3 years experience). Although I do have interest in haematology, I have the same level interest in BBing, as you see my posts here. ; ) It's due to some issues that made me decide that I have to leave, and not that I have more interest in haem or no more interest in BBing.

Remember, we should be patient-oriented. This is not an opinion. If there are any policy that obstruct others from improving safety of the patients, then the policy is wrong! And certainly patient confidentiality doesn't apply here, isn't it?

Yup! We do call it the 6S. ; ) I'm the 6S coordinator for my BB, but I am in the midst of handing over to my colleague as I have requested for a transfer to Haematology. I will still be in touch with Blood Transfusion, though..

Thank you! I see if I can pin that up in my BB. ; )

My BB policy is to issue O Neg RBC for childbearing-aged females and O Pos to males. But personally, I really do not see why we would want to waste precious O Neg RBCs if there are at least 2 specimens sent in the patient's history.

My BB try to prevent them from getting all at the same time. Our reasons for it (and I believe in this) is that the unit that is awaiting to be tranfused, are usually kept at suboptimal conditions. And we have a few too many cases of wards forgetting that it's there. And when they realised it, the poor unit had been there for hours at room temperature. I am very near to the equator. Of course, for bleeders (which I assume will have more than one IV site), anything goes. Although it's not my BB's policy, I do try to preach physicians to get whole blood for massive bleeders instead of packed cells + FFP.

I use a 4-unit Helmer water thawer. Very reliable, been using it for many years already. No significant problems. But I am interested in exploring this microwave thawer... Hmm...

For the greater good, I think it's best that this information be shared. It's kinda selfish for the outgoing hospital management to refuse releasing important medical data to the patients' new caregiver. They do not lose anything if they transfer the information, but the patients stand to gain.