I would appreciate input from other hospital blood bankers out there on how you maintain patient identity during traumas. My hospital merges the trauma identification number to a historical medical record number ASAP. When this merge happens, without a new specimen, we really do not have a good means of maintaining patient identity. We ask for a new specimen when them merge happens, but this is not always immediately apparent to us and we get a lot of push back and often no repeat sample. We have asked the other parties involved to delay the merge during the massive transfusion event. They would still be able to access the historical information, but we would be able to better maintain patient identity if they delayed this process. This request was not well received as the clinical team is anxious to access the patient history and allergy history and may not completely understand the patient safety issue on the blood bank side of things. We also use "R numbers" for red cell transfusion, which sometimes confounds the process. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I would appreciate input from other hospital blood bankers out there on how you maintain patient identity during traumas. My hospital merges the trauma identification number to a historical medical record number ASAP. When this merge happens, without a new specimen, we really do not have a good means of maintaining patient identity. We ask for a new specimen when them merge happens, but this is not always immediately apparent to us and we get a lot of push back and often no repeat sample. We have asked the other parties involved to delay the merge during the massive transfusion event. They would still be able to access the historical information, but we would be able to better maintain patient identity if they delayed this process. This request was not well received as the clinical team is anxious to access the patient history and allergy history and may not completely understand the patient safety issue on the blood bank side of things. We also use "R numbers" for red cell transfusion, which sometimes confounds the process. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.