APosgirl

Solid phase is very sensitive to warm autos, though I wouldn't call those 'false' positives - they are more a pain in the tush. Repeat the screen with PeG or LISS. If the repeat screen doesn't react, do an AHG crossmatch with that enhancement - good to go.
Solid phase on occasion will pick up a non-specific reacting antibody. Run a panel (or 2) and rule out all common clinically significant alloantibodies, do an AHG crossmatch with solid phase - good to go. There are facilities who've done retrospective studies which seem to be showing that up to 30% of these types of patients at some facilities (this would depend on the patient population) are in the process of making an antibody that will be identifiable at a future visit. We've seen a couple of patients that seem to fit in that category. Another thought for these reactions is that the patient is actually demonstrating an antibody to a crypt antigen on the screen/panel cell. The crypt antigen is exposed because of the way the antibody screen and panel cells are prepared for microwell testing.
Personally, I was vaguely dissatisfied with gel. When we were using gel, there were too many patients that we had to perform tube/PeG antibody IDs on to identify weakly reactive antibodies. We could tell there was something there in gel, but there weren't enough/strong enough reactions to ID. With solid phase, some of these same patients  were reacting 2+ or better.
I'm willing to trade a few annoying 'false' positives for the increased sensitivity of solid phase. My 'no interpertation' rate is usually under 2% of our antibody screens. We do about 400 ABS a month, so that's anywhere from 8 -12 questionable patient results on average, some months can be few more. But again, consider your patient population. I see a lot of patients with no history and frequently transfused patients, percentage wise, in our patient population. The increase in sensitivity is a good thing for us.
 

In reviewing the Operator's Manual provided with the Workstation, we identified another problem that I don't see mentioned in this post.  Page 13 states "Note: The incubator must not be used if the timer or temperature is out of specification."  See also page 18 "NOTE: The incubator must not be used if the timer is out of specification".  
 
At AABB last month, I asked an Ortho rep why the incubator must be taken out of service when the timer (that does not control the temperature) is not in calibration.  The Ortho rep had no idea that the operator's manuals said this, claimed that it must be an error and recommended not following the operators manual. 
 
I also asked how to validate that the green light actually turns off when the incubator gets too hot.  They had no suggestions.  We discussed taking daily temperatures without wasting a large number of gel cards.  They had many suggestions that did not follow the very specific instruction's in their operator's manual on how to achive this goal.