froggymork

Just wondering if anyone is still using the Protamine Sulphate? Or an FDP for DICs. Or if they report out just a D-Dimer? Thanks

Wondering about this as well....We still do a Protamine for any abnormal DIC...but is the testing still necessary? Couldn't we do a FDP for ease of use? But really...are either test REALLY necessary any longer?

If you have a negative DAT? We don't call anything like that at all. Interesting....

Have any other primarily Gel users noticed an increase in Rouleaux in the last 6 months? We have the Provue and do gel manually but have had an increasing need for tube screens because of the pesky rouleaux. Rouleaux used to be a rare incovenience but now we are almost seeing one a day. Any info appreciated.....

Let us know what you find out Brenda. I will definitely pass this onto our BB supervisor because we use prepooled cryo products but my understanding of the process was that they pooled them before freezing so I will definitely check into it! Thanks again.

No doubt my rare is WAY different than yours !

Nope....we get out blood from our supplier. Our blood supplier has "historical" antigen histories of donors. Rare cases of difficult antibodies crossmatches we have to rely on the ARC for units. They phenotype. Clear as mud I know.

We do confirm antigen status from our blood supplier. The reference laboratory is the one we do not phenotype again if it is a rare unit.... Hope that helps to make it clear as mud....

Nope! We retype the blood. Phenotype if necessary. But if a ARC sends us a rare unit that they have phenotyped and it is IAT compatible then we don't redo all the phenotypes.....it happens pretty rarely that we have to get units from Red Cross....

I've just started and it is AMAZING the breadth of knowledge of the seasoned posters here....GREAT resource!!

Yeah...in our blood suppliers defense...they do not perform phenotyping at all...they are dependent on the phenotypes provided by hospitals which then they enter slowly to donor record for "hisotrically" antigen negative unit searches.

We have not encountered a phenotype mismatch from the reference lab. We however do encounted a phenotype discrepancy from our donor center somewhat often..ie...unit is supposed to be antigen negative and isn't.

Our Provue is not interfaced. We are still on a paper system with manual test entry. We do IAT xms if needed on the Provue. It is very slick. We also use the Provue for routine TXMs with IS crossmatches and the assorted TYSC.

We just switched our "Code red" protocol to release Oneg or O pos depending on the rh..before we were giving type specific uncrossed if needed by doing a quick front type but I guess that was against AABB recomendations. So now once we have a complete type (front and back) we switch types if needed. We also do not have anything documented about giving Rh pos to Rh neg when appropriate. It would be nice to have some more wiggle room on certain occasions though.

We are still on a mostly paper system so we have the nurses/cnas bring a duplicate form with the labels of who they are transfusing. We then match it with our information and then write the unit on that duplicate form. Also, we have a triplicate form for the original work documentation that must be present for every unit. Very cumbersome. But at least we have the doublecheck of their vs. ours. I guess. This is the first facility I have worked without a computer system for BB but without the budget we do what we can......