Does anyone have a policy that sets a time limit for issue of a blood product for a non-stat blood administration - i.e. a routine order to give (no specific time stated by physician)? Nursing is looking for a benchmark.

Our protocols state over one hour or specified by physician, not to excede 4 hours.

If the orders are routine, do you have a specific target turnaround time for getting the pretransfusion testing completed and the unit ready and available for issue?

If antibody screen is NEGATIVE: 4 hours for our routine, 2 hours for ASAP and 1 hour for STAT.

We are the same, except 1hr 30 minutes for STATs. Our actual average turnaround time for Stats is between 45 and 60 minutes but we gave ourselves a little wiggle room for getting the specimen drawn and to allow for times of overload with AM surgical cases.

The nurses generally pay little or no attention to our 'promised service' times and start calling before the phleb gets back with the sample.

<<If antibody screen is NEGATIVE: 4 hours for our routine, 2 hours for ASAP and 1 hour for STAT>>

These times certainly seem reasonable. When do you start the clock...when the order is received or when the sample is received in the Blood Bank? The problem we are having is that after the 6 am daily phlebotomy rounds, phlebotomists do not round again until 10 am then every two hours. The original deal when the lab director began phlebotomy "rounds" was that anything that could not wait until the next rounds would have to be drawn by the floor nurses. Suddenly almost all lab requests could wait until the next rounds. Except for the critical care areas, nursing will not draw blood. So sometimes several hours has elapsed from the time a transfusion order is placed and the time we receive a specimen.

Morning Bev,

In my world the clock starts when the transfusion service receives the sample. (That's assuming we also have an order at the same time or before.) That's the soonest we have any control in the process.

The problem is, the docs start the clock when they first think about ordering something. The nurses start the clock when they tell the clerk to order something after reading what the doc has written. Lab QA starts the clock when the phlebotmist receives the order and specimen processing starts the clock when they take the sample out of the pneumatic tube.

TO MANY CLOCKS!!!!!!

TO MANY CLOCKS!!!!!!

We have found that paying too much attention to our clocks distracts us from paying attention to our crystal balls and tarot cards...

Our stats go out in about 1 hour, ASAP's in 2, and routine's get their blood whenever they get to it. For a routine transfusion, the blood bank will call the floor and document the call and whom they talked to. It's up to the nurse giving the blood to come and get it in a timely manner. I've given up on chasing nurses around, at least for transfusions.:cool:

The problem is, the docs start the clock when they first think about ordering something.

TO MANY CLOCKS!!!!!!