We have begun implementation of SoftBank and are hoping to find current users who have devised a means of issuing uncrossmatched blood when the patient is not yet in the system. Since the program requires a patient to 'select' the units for, we're unsure how to get blood to trauma patients prior to admission in the HIS. Thanks.

We have decided that the easiest and quickest way to get blood out to a patient that is not in soft is to issue it manually. We had thought we would be able to issue it in soft before going live, but it has turned out to be quicker maually. If anyone has solved this issue, I would love to hear about it.

I have previous experience with Soft, and to my knowledge, you would have to manually or "emergency" issue the units. Not sure how you would issue in any system to a patient that is not in the system yet.

In some computer systems it is sometimes possible to create a fake patient that you emergency issue to and then enter the units as transfused to the real patient once he is in the system. One way to do this is to name the patient something like "Name________________" so that the paperwork prints with a space for nursing to fill in the patient's name once they know it. I have done this with a free-standing BBIS but I am not sure that it is possible with an integrated HIS, LIS, and BBIS. You would have to get everyone from Medical Records on down to go along with it.

We insist on a name prior to issue of emergency release blood. It is often a Doe name but never the less a name to put in the computer. This is also helpful if there are multiple patients.

Maybe 'issue' wasn't the best choice of words. We currently have Cerner Classic and can generate a transfusion form with the unit information on it without any patient data. This allows us to physically take units to the Trauma room prior to patient arrival, and manually record the patient ID number on the forms so we have it associated with the unit numbers. Generation of this form is what we're trying to get SoftBank to do.

In Cerner Classic we have a "Trauma Pt" that we dispense to. It is a QC patient so it never purges. Does Soft allow for QC type patients?

You must be able to print a blank form to use during a down, why not use that and just hand-write the unit number?

Maybe 'issue' wasn't the best choice of words. We currently have Cerner Classic and can generate a transfusion form with the unit information on it without any patient data. This allows us to physically take units to the Trauma room prior to patient arrival, and manually record the patient ID number on the forms so we have it associated with the unit numbers. Generation of this form is what we're trying to get SoftBank to do.

How do you do that in cerner classic. When you print the form with unit # ...you do not have patient's name on it. Is that correct? I figure you would have unit type and expiration date on the form. Can you please write here where do I go to print this form. DO I need to build in BB3 or is already there and we are not using it??

Thank you in advance.

As I didn't "build" our version of classic I don't know if this works across the board, but in BLF we have the option of printing an emergency transfusion tag, you put in the number of forms desired and then tell Cerner to print a blank form. This causes all of the hard coded words to print but leaves spaces to fill in demographic info. Don't know if it will work but give it a try.

How do you do that in cerner classic. When you print the form with unit # ...you do not have patient's name on it. Is that correct? I figure you would have unit type and expiration date on the form. Can you please write here where do I go to print this form. DO I need to build in BB3 or is already there and we are not using it??

I'm not sure who is on what version here. In BB3 under the product, you can define what sort of tags you want to print. We have the 'emergency' tag checked as an option for our red cells.

Then we have a 'patient' who's name is 'code 11, trauma' and leave the id field blank at that time. When we have to respond, we use DIS to dispense to Onegs to this 'patient'. When the patient used the blood we hand write the name and id on the form and use RBB to 'bring it back' and redispense to the actual patient.

We have been up live on SoftBank since March of this year. We had SCC set up a way for us to print downtime labels and slips which can be used similarly to that way you use them in Cerner. We had Cerner prior to implementing SoftBank so I understand how much work it is. Anywhere within SoftBank we can hit a function key and get the list of downtimes labels we need to print. Good luck!

We have begun implementation of SoftBank and are hoping to find current users who have devised a means of issuing uncrossmatched blood when the patient is not yet in the system. Since the program requires a patient to 'select' the units for, we're unsure how to get blood to trauma patients prior to admission in the HIS. Thanks.

I have implemented the same system in our Blood Bank 2 yrs ago. Call me to

exchange ideas. 407-296-1127 Norma

We have had SoftBank since 1994 and we use a fake "Trauma Patient" to allow emergency issue of blood products to patients. I like the suggestion of Trauma, ________

This would allow the person administering the unit to add the name to the transfusion slip / unit tags.

We are looking a Soft. We currently have Sunquest. What system did you have before? I know this does not help your situation.

We have SCC, if we have no name our system is set up that we "transfer" the unit(s) to the ER or OR and print a blank transfusion record. Frankly, it is cumbersome this way. Over the years (>35), I have used SCC, Meditech Magic, and Meditech CS for blood banking and have come to the conclusion that emergancy release done manually is the easiest and fastest way.

Thanks for your reply. How do you like SCC? I was very impressed. We currently use Sunquest. Are there any problems with SCC?

We used Sunquest for 16 years before moving to Softbank in March of this year. Our lab is still Sunquest. I fought to move Blood Bank to a new system after testing the GUI Sunquest Blood Bank for three months. I am much happier with Softbank and so are my techs. In order to get approval for the switch, I had to keep the cost down and not make the lab phlebotomists use two systems so we did not interface to Sunquest. Most of the difficulties we have are due to not having this interface. Collections are done from SQ so we have to "receive" samples in both systems. Still, I think we have improved patient safety with Softbank.

For unregistered trauma patients, we have a patient set up with firstname, last names and MRN as . (a period). We add a red cell product order and give it a 1 year expiration. We let Soft assign a "dummy" billing number. We use the Emergency Issue function to select units and print unit tags. We can write in whatever the ED is using for patient ID. When we get the admit registration for the patient, we merge the temporary patient into the "real" patient. This frees up the med rec # of "." so we then define a new trauma patient as described above so it is available for the next time.

Send me a private message if you would like to have a phpne conversation.

-Bev

All blood bank systems require a patient for you to allocate products to (select) for issue. How it lets you handle the crossmatching varies by system, but the problems and work arounds of generic "trauma patients" are nearly universal.

My site uses Sunquest and has the same shortcoming. I wrote an MS Access application that the staff can use to generate all the paperwork and labels and it allows them to use the barcode scanners to input the unit data. As a database it also stores every unit number we issue as uncrossmatched. The staff loves it because it is fast and almost goof-proof. One checkbox (emergency issue) and all the datafields default except for the unit data and they can use the barcode gun for that. Click "print" and it is ready to go.

When the patient is finally in the system the units get processed there as the final record.