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This is not a popular concept but at some point we have to accept there are things we can not control.  Once the blood leaves the blood bank we are at the mercy of other humans and as long as the human factor is involved there will be human error be it unintentional or intentional.  Attempting to complicate a process will only provide inventive humans the opportunity of coming up with creative work arounds to circumvent your best of intentions.  At some point you just have to step back, do your job and hope for the best.  I had a corporate transfusion QA director who could not accept that human error could not be completely eliminated with out eliminating human involvement in the process.  Her directives became horribly complex solutions with multiple, redundant checks and balances only resulting in increasing problems.
Bottom line, pick your battles and fight those you have a reasonable chance of winning.  Make suggestions, offer insight, provide training opportunities but at the end of the day realize that you have to accept some things are simply beyond your control and even your influence.
On that happy note I'll step off my soap box and stop my philosophical ramblings.   

Hi Malcolm,
I just want to add my congratulations on your retirement.  I wish you much happiness in this new chapter in your life.  I have both enjoyed and learned very much from your posts, I thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.   I look for your input on these challenging topics, am glad to hear you are not leaving us!
Karen Finegan MT(ASCP)SBB  Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix AZ

Well, that's me finished.  I am officially retired from work - but not from this wonderful site!

We prepare small aliquots into ISBT labeled and tagged bags, and nurses pull the product into a syringe at the bedside using a small Y-Set (Baxter 4C2223, 13 inches) with an in-line filter. The labeled/tagged bag is NEVER disconnected from the syringe throughout the transfusion. The syringe simply becomes a part of the line from the bag to the patient. We've been doing it this way for years and it works very well.

What Sandy says is correct. The syringe aliquot would receive a corresponding product description code with an "Open" attribute.
Erwin Cabana
ICCBBA

I know that there are separate blood type barcodes for autologous units in ISBT.  Are you saying that there are also separate blood type bar codes in ISBT for Octaplas?  If so, there is probably a table or dictionary or some such that lists all of the ISBT barcodes for various blood types and these new codes need to be added to that table/dictionary (or whatever you call them in Softbank).

I also went through this with Soft.  Each blood type of Octaplas has a different product code.  Group AB is X0004000 for the frozen product and X0008000 for the thawed product.  The product is not labeled with an Rh  Soft says they are waiting for ICCBBA to provide them with specs for the Octaplas labels.  I was able to print the thawed product labels manually using Shift-F9 but there is only the barcode and eye readable number.  The product name does not print. I was not able to scan in the DIN because it begins with the country code X.  Soft currently only recognizes W for USA and C for Canada.  You can manually type the DIN in and it does not ask for a check digit..

This is the type of procedure that would be unique to each Blood Bank; you have to make up a plan made for your specific design and situation. You need an internal disaster plan that includes a relocation of your Blood Bank operation, including:
Move of blood products (emergency power requirements, in a secured area...)
Move of manuals/records (are your procedures online and available on other computers?)
Move of operations (how to perform testing elsewhere)
Resources (blood, more staffing, communication, etc)
At my previous hospital we had a "disaster box", a plastic container with everything needed to set up a functional Blood Bank elsewhere (test tubes, gloves, rack, etc) with a list taped to the top of the box of reagents/equipment needed that couldn't be in the box. We performed a disaster drill: the scenario was that there was an explosion in the Lab and we had less than 10 minutes to evacuate. We came up with a disaster plan, made the disaster box, and quickly grabbed a centrifuge and reagents, etc. Our Helmer refrigerator is on wheels so we unplugged it with the blood supply in it and rolled it to the ER, where we set up an interim Blood Bank. The battery backup lasted until we got there with plenty of battery left. It was actually fun, and we were pretty proud that we were completely set up in the ER ready to go in about 10 minutes.
So have a brainstorming session with your staff...what would happen if...fire in the Lab, flood in the Lab...how would we get the blood out, where would we go, how would we communicate with each other and the blood center?