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Sorry to be responding so late to this thread. After over a year of investigating and validating, we found a cooler that will hold the temperature of red cells, up to 10 per cooler between 1-6 C for 24 hours. We actually have data for up to 72 hours but implemented 24 hours. Part of the solution is the use of "wet ice", flaked ice from an ice machine. The frozen "blue ice" containers we formerly used in the rubbermaid coolers just doesn't have the same heat exchange properties as does melting ice at 0 C.

The coolers are a cube about 14 inches per side. They are called Smart shippers and run for over $300 each. We also needed to purchase an ice flaker for the OR satellite blood bank dispense station. But with the wastage of red cells in the OR that we were experiencing, these coolers will pay for themselves in less than a year. The use of blood in coolers for the OR is mainly for major heart cases as well as liver transplants. If anyone is interested in more information on the coolers, I can refer to the manufacturer, I can send pictures of how we use them, etc. In fact I have a whole power point that I used to inservice the OR staff.

Hi Ann,

I am a new member and was task to validate our cell safe coolers. I would appreciate if you can send me a copy of your powerpoint presentation.palabok2@u.washington.edu

Come on guys your great American industry have developed a new generation of temperature controlled containers to suit different temp adn storage times. We have even heard for this equipment in Australia! Go to

http://www.mnthermalscience.com/Index.aspx

We have been using the Igloo system for 9 years. At first we followed the instructions from Cell Safe, two blocks frozen at -30C and one refrigerated at 1 to 6C. Then at one point I purchased one or two new ones from a different supplier. The booklet for the new ones mentioned the above protocol and an alternate one of using three blocks frozen at -20 to -24C. This worked great for us as we were able to use a shelf in Chemistry's freezer; and my validations (Minimal load, Maximal load without withdrawal and Maximal load with withdrawals q two hours) showed we could maintain 1 to 6C for at least 12 hours.

Portable refrigerators and data loggers. The ONLY way to go! (IMHO)

Franklyn, what data loggers do you use? How expensive are they? How often do you have them set to read a temperature?

At the recent AABB meeting in Montreal, they specifically mentioned at the assessor training that temps had to be recorded every 4 hours, regardless of how long your cooler is validated for. I'm thinking I'll have to move to data loggers, or either have SURG/ICU/ED staff bring them back to us every 4 hours so we can read a thermometer inside and manually record a temperature.

We are using the Veriteq brand loggers, but there has been an explosion of vendors as of late so you have a lot of choices. The loggers are recording the temp every five minutes. That permits us to generate beautiful and easy to read graphs for the time periods the units were out of the blood bank. This makes it much easier to investigate if we have evidence of the contents being out of the specified range. In the loggers I use, I can record around 35 days worth of temperature readings in the loggers memory at that frequency.

Hi I am a new user of the Bloodbank Talk too.

We are in the process of validating our Igloo coolers. We were using the same method as NedB was using, two frozen and one refrigerated gel pack (the ones with hard container and blue ice in it), and I was able to cary four units for 6 hours at 3-3.5 C. I wasn't able to carry on for long time due to shortness of time. This was with opennig cooler every 15 minutes, because I was taking temps every 15 min. I wasn't sure how often we should be taking temps.

Does enyone has written procedure or protocol for validation of coolers to share ? That will be greately appriciated.

Thanks

Mini Me

If they would let us consider coolers transport instead of storage, we wouldn't have to log the temps every 4 hours. I am sure the ambient conditions are much more stable than during some transport conditions. I had better be quiet or soon they will have us put data loggers in all blood shipments!

We are validating the coolers for transporting blood for massive transfusion protocol. Basically doctors will activate the protocol and someone from Surgery will come and pick up the cooler with 2/4 units and keep in surgery just incase patient starts bleeding in complicated surgery. If the blood has not been used withing 4 hours of surgery then they will bring the cooler back to the lab

thanks

Mini Me

Does any one know a name of the company who makes blood storage units ( Red hard box like coolers)? Do you have a phone number of the company or website?

Hi Everyone

if you are thinking about following kind of cooler then the sites to go get them are underneath them, Wal-Mart has same kind of coolers. These coolers does not come with the holder bucket for units.

Market Lab has the whole kit you can order from them which comes with two freezer pack ( hard cover gel pack ) and one/two gel packs.

http://www.igloo-store.com/category.asp?CAT=iglfindacooler

http://www.igloo-store.com/product_list.asp?SKW=iglpk

Thanks

stay

I am talking about the one they use it in Army or on the helicopter---can keep blood @ 1-6 for 12 to 16 hrs. I have seen the company @ 2007 AABB in CA. but fogot the name of the company. I know someone in texas uses them.

We have same cooler ISC and we keep for 6 hours and recently changed our criteria from calling it transport to storage. Our neighbour facility was cited for calling it transport but more so for not monitoring temperature every 4 hours. So now the new issue is, how can you store in cooler for 6 hours and not monitoring temp. every 4 hrs of storage? Any comments? We are considering changing coolants every 4 hours if cooler is not returned and case is not over. The problem with that is, at our facility Blood Bank staff is responsible for transporting coolers and that creates problem specially in PM and mid night shift or weekends when staffing is minimal.

http://www.esmartshipper.com/smart.htm

These coolers maintain 1-6 C for 24 hours and more with 2 lbs of flaked ice. Their phone # is on the web site. They require PO and prepay. Without data logger $300. If you save just 2 red cells they pay for themselves.

The data loggers have to be downloaded to a PC. I see this as a hassle everytime a cooler comes back with blood in it. I'm considering using min-max thermometers which will tell you only the highest and lowest temps between readings. Why would I want a reading every 5 minutes, or every 4 hours, if this will tell me whether the cooler went out of range at any time during the interval of "storage" in the OR. Min-max thermometers are a lot cheaper than data loggers and a lot quicker and easier to read. Any thoughts?

We have validated our coolers to keep 2 units 1-6 for 23 hours [but we don't let them stay out that long]. They are 10 Quart Rubbermaids from Wal-Mart ($10). Stamped on the bottoms is: Part# 2A21 CAV# 3. We also put Safe-T-Vue 10's (temperature indicators) on each unit. We use 4 Cryo-Gels: 2 kept frozen in our -30 plasma freezer, 2 kept in our 1-6 fridge. A frozen Cryo-Gel goes on the bottom, then a 1-6 Cryo-Gel, then the 2 units of blood, then a 1-6 Cryo-Gel, then the frozen Cryo-Gel tops it off. We rotate the Cryo-Gels. (We didn't buy these, just rescue them from reagent shipments.) The Cryo-Gels and the blood take up nearly all the space inside the cooler. We could probably get 1 more unit in there [but we don't]. We revalidate annually by placing temperature probes (2) at the interfaces between the units and the 1-6 Cryo-Gels.

We use Artic Zone & California Innovations soft packs, with 2 bags of ice

(2 scoops /bag), totalling 6.6 lbs. They were validated up to 8 hrs, with 2 units of blood, with temps taken every hour. The temps were always between 1- 6C.

We are using Thermosafe coolers that I found in Market Lab, a little pricey but work just great!

I have a validation protocol, email me at Mary_Mendel@ssmhc.com, will be glad to share.

What brand of ice packs do you use?

We use the igloo coolers for our vascular surgical cases. We consider the coolers as storage units and we change out the ice packs in them every 3 hours to maintain a 1-6C range. We also validate these coolers semi-annually.

Kris MT (ASCP) BB:)

New York State Dept of Health released Guidlines for Remote Blood Storage. They have designated coolers as storage devices, not transport devices, and as such need to maintain below 6 degrees. So I will need to change from Safe-T-Vue 10 to Safe-T-Vue 6 and do another validation and change my policy.