I have now done pretty extensive research on pre-printed product code labels and have just placed an order with Shamrock for several custom labels--which will become stock now that someone has ordered them. For me they had the best price, because almost anyplace I got them I was getting a 20+ years' supply so the price per label was less important than the capital outlay at the moment. The only ones I needed were for irradiated products.

They got me mockups of the product codes I wanted emailed to me within a day. I should have the labels in about 2-3 weeks. All I had to do was tell them the ISBT codes and they plugged them into their usual format.

Someone in our little Meditech hand-holding group pointed out that even those with the ability to print them might still need some for downtime. The divided product labels should be a real joy--maybe an inkpen will do till the computer comes up.

Someone with a free-standing printer should go into the business of printing off batches of 20-50 labels for small places. With so many different possible codes we will use up fewer of each. Maybe there is more to it than I think, but I wonder why so many label companies are so expensive.

We have also used Shamrock for the ISBT 128 labels we need (such as those for 5 day plasma).

We haven't had any problems with this.