I am just curious how often other Blood Banks weigh their pipettes? CAP just says they should be checked periodically depending on the laboratory's intensity of usage so when I came here, BB was only checking quarterly, but all other departments were doing it monthly. When I questioned this, they stated that the other departments used their pipettes frequently...well we use gel so we use ours frequently, also. So I have been working towards weighing them monthly, but everyone thinks I am crazy to make more work for us when "quarterly has always worked before". Anyone have an opinion on this based on your facilities procedures?

We do it quarterly. All other department is same as blood bank. CAP says periodically so if your SOP requires quartely then you need to follow it. Last CAP one of the department was missing one quarter and they were cited for it because our policy says we nedd to do it quarterly.

The only pipetter that we use is one for a rapid HIV test and currently we calibrate it every 6 months.

Our clinical lab support services section calibrates all laboratory pipettes, including those in Blood Bank, every six months.