We are thinking about getting a blood washer for those rare times we may wish to wash or deglyc frozen blood. Wondering if anyone can share their opinion as to what I should be looking at? I have used an old COBE before somewhere else and it seemed to work ok, but curious about the Haemonetics washer and others?

If washing blood is a rare occurence (as it should be!) then it wouldn't seem to me to be worth the expense as well as the time and effort for validation and QC to get one. (Unless you're at a blood center, in which case you probably do need to have one!)

We are a larger hospital but 6 hours away from our blood center. Occasionally, we get IgA deficient patients or (more commonly) pregnant females with high incidence antibodies. Would like the ability to receive rare frozen units from our supplier and only thaw and deglyc if required.

So, do you have appropriate monitored storage for a frozen blood unit? Would you be able to maintain competency in the deglycerolyzation procedure? What about maintaining the fluids required - they all have expirations...

Just some things to think about before jumping in.