I am interested in the blood product signout process used by Transfusion Services who utilize a pneumatic tube system for transporting blood products to patient care areas. Traditionally two individuals (one from the Blood Bank and one from the Patient Care area) review numbers, names, etc on forms and the blood product label to verify identification of the requested unit to the patient before it is released from the blood bank.

To do this when using a pneumatic tube system, two blood bank staff memebers would be involved. Is this what pneumatic tube users do?

If possible, please email a copy of your sign out procedure to me (email removed by admin to reduce spam, please contact through the users profile) Any information on the use of pneumatic tubes would be very helpfull.

Thank you

Hi Ellis, I've attached a copy of our "Tubing Blood" sop along with the form we use. Hope they help. If you have any questions let me know.

John

<admin edit>Product Request Form MK4013-F1v2.doc became corrupt and needed to be removed</edit>

John

Thank you for sharing your process. Please clarify one point for me. Upon request from the patient care area, only one staff member selects the appropriate blood unit that was crossmatched previously and checks the label, tags and sends to the patient care area. Is this correct?

Thanks, ellis

Ellis,

I haven't read John's SOPs, but the process you describe is what we do. One staff person always reviews / issues all of our products. It is not different for the tube system, issuing to a cooler or issuing to transport staff.

John

Thank you for sharing your process. Please clarify one point for me. Upon request from the patient care area, only one staff member selects the appropriate blood unit that was crossmatched previously and checks the label, tags and sends to the patient care area. Is this correct?

Thanks, ellis

Yes Ellis you are correct. The staff member removes the unit from the refirgerator and writes the patient ID # from the "bag tag" onto the request form in the upper right side. They then compare what they have written with the information on the request form. They also compare the patient's name on the "bag tag" with the name on the form. All of these must be an exact match for the blood to be issued. We use the biologics armbanding system so a lable is made from the patient's armband and stuck to the request form. That is where the patient info is found. This is how we confirm the right unit is being sent to the right patient.

Hope this helps. It's much easier to explain when I can do show and tell. If I had a scanner I could show you but I don't.

I forgot to mention, it is not unusual for only one sstaff member to be on duty at a given time so this was the solution they came up with and it is working quite well. I monitored every transfusion of 3 months after going live with the tube system. There were no problems so now I monitor every transfusion for 30 days twice each year.

There are only 2 people in our blood bank on days and 1 on evenings and about 1/2 on nights. We don't tube on nights because it takes more time than just issueing through the Blood Bank window. We transfuse about 700 products a month. We only tube Packed Cells because Platelet Pheresis are too expensive to get lost in the tube. We check blood between the two of us if two are here, otherwise, we carefully check it ourselves. We only tube to Oncology - everyone else picks it up. Oncology calls for it giving the patient's name and Med record number. We issue to ourselves, then tube and write on a log: date, time, person sending, pt. name. When it is received, Oncology calls and tells us if it's cold and intact. We then complete the line on the log with the name of the person receiving the unit and that it was OK and cold.

We are expanding our lab space and Blood Bank will move to an area containing the tube system. At that time, ICU hopes they will be included with Oncology in receiving their packed cells and possibly FFP that way. We hope we'll get a clerk to help handle all the tubing of blood.

Ellis, Thanks for all the info on tubing blood. Our Oncology Dept. is outside the

hospital and we sent blood samples through the tube. They have asked about sending blood units but I have just been putting them off. I will read all the information and work on a procedure for here. Thanks again, Rosanne

Does anyone know of any studies regarding PLATELETS and the effect (in vivo) of tubing them? Are the platelets affected in any way???

Are other facilities allowing platelets to be tubed ?--I see them listed on John's request form..

Hi Ellis, I've attached a copy of our "Tubing Blood" sop along with the form we use. Hope they help. If you have any questions let me know.

John

John,

We met once upon a time when Detroit Medical Center did your system CAP inspection. I was browsing through posts and found your post for validating the pneumatic tube system. I now work in a start-up lab (11 mos. old and newly CAP certified!) and am about to validate our tube system to transport blood products between the lab and our dispensing area. Would you please send me your procedures again, including the request form? Also, if you have a "recipe" for Coombs Control Cells would you be so kind as to share?

Thanks!

Margaret Wilde

mwilde@memorialsb.org

Hi Ellis, I've attached a copy of our "Tubing Blood" sop along with the form we use. Hope they help. If you have any questions let me know.

John

Hi John,

Could you send me the procedure and the form to my email. I can't seem to open the file, even though I signed in. kgeorgakis@reshealthcare.org

I am interested in the question about platelets - do you send platelets in the pneumatic tube as well? PFA specimens cannot be sent due to damage to the platelets so just curious.

We sent platelets through the tube system and didn't seem to have any problems.

Hi Ellis, I've attached a copy of our "Tubing Blood" sop along with the form we use. Hope they help. If you have any questions let me know.

John

Hi JOhn! Would you be able to send me your tube system procedures. I can't pull them up even when logged in. Thanks!!! lchumney@aultman.com

Sorry folks, long gone from that job. I no longer have access to that info.

I too tried to open the documents while being signed in and could not. The laboratory where I currently work is designing a new lab and we are considering tubing blood. At an institution where I previously worked we tubed blood successfully, but my current medical director and others would like to know how several other institutions have done it. Would you please be able to email them to me at barobinson@geisinger.edu? If there is something I am not doing that I should to open them any help would be appreciated, Thank you in advance.

If anyone finds a study about sending platelets through the pneumatic tube system, I'd also love to read it!

Annadele

I was able to restore the attachment " ISSUING BLOOD AND BLOOD PRODUCTS VIA PNEUMATIC TUBE SYSTEM.doc"; however, "Product Request Form MK4013-F1v2.doc" became corrupt and needed to be deleted - It was a server failure, nothing anyone one the site did.

As John has mentioned, he no longer has access to these documents.