Is anyone using data collection, blood utilization software that they could recommend for tracking/ auditing purposes? :juggle:

Thanks for your input.

Angela Nava

We use Microsoft Access to track all of our units, from reciept to final disposition. Since we do not have a Blood Bank System (small rural hospital) this has been very helpful for us. The program was developed with currently available software (MS office) and so it did not cost us anything other than the time to develope it, which though substantial has paid for itself over the past five years. We currently have all units recieved and dispensed, unit attributes and patient recipient information on line for the past five years, approx 10,000 units and over 8000 patients. Works for us and the NYS DOH. Terry.McIntyre@viahealth.org

Terry,

Thank you for your helpful reply!

Angela

I am interested to know how you validated the program in order to use it for tracking the unit.

We are a multi hospital facility. We use Cerner Millennium as our LIS system. We have a custom report that tracks all transfused products for all facilities. Report includes pre and post transfusion Hb, PT and Platelet counts, attending physician, hospital service, etc...

Report runs daily through operations and is FTP'd to a monthly excel file.

Opal,

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with your hospital's software.

Angela

Thank you very much for helping me with this question.

Angela

Opal - Prior to using this database program I inputted a months worth of units that we had recieved/transferred or transfused. These units formed the base for testing the program for accuracy. This program is strictly for tracking units and the disposition of the components that we recieve. We are able to print out our current inventory which we do on a regular basis. The inventory printout is then compared to what is in the fridge and on the board. Thus we know on a daily basis if our tracking system is working for our recieved products. When units are transfused the information is taken from the hard cards and entered to indicate the patient that received the unit. We still use old fashion hard cards as our primary blood banking record. We used a series of fake patient information to ensure that the system was working correctly. You may want to see the threads on "Homegrown Computer System -Ha" for more information and for a reply from Sheryl Kochman of the Devices Review Branch. Since we do not use this system for patient care, donor selection, interpretative testing, electronic crossmatches or anything but tracking units it is difficult for me to see that this administrative tool would be a medical device, but this may be the case as per Sheryls' remarks.

Did you get any responses?I am also interested.

Using something like an Excel worksheet to track units as an automated secretary would be OK, such as billing or as a tool for finding selected paperwork quickly in a filing system. The benefits would have to outweigh the time/cost of entering the information.

But no control functions could be included without a substantial validation.