I know of a facility that uses a small sticker with a Blood Bank ID# on it that is placed on the patient's hospital ID band. The sticker also says that it is not to be removed.

We copied their idea and used it successfully until the 'powers that be' decided to change the armband format here. The barcode on the band become bigger and there was no room left for our stickers. We found about the change when a phleb came back from preop saying they couldn't figure out where to put the BB ID#. (You ever notice that folks in one area never imagine that something they change can affect other areas?? Usually in a bad way!) Anyway, we started putting the same sticker on another blank hospital band and have continued using the separate ID#.

I know that the hospital we copied from is still using the same small sticker on the hospital ID band - I saw one 2 weeks ago. It's been working for them for > than 10 years.

I think you may be talking about us (Lincoln, NE)! Yes, it has been very successful for us and very economical considering both the cost of a separate BB armband and the phlebo time to initiate a new armband.

Because we do this, we realize how frequently hospital armbands can be changed. You may think the same admission armband stays on during the whole hospital stay. But I think most of us find it just gets replaced and you don't have a way to know that. So you may have lost your link between armband and specimen and not know it. We have had several instances where the BB No. has been key in catching mislabeling and even Wrong Blood in Tube.

Belva in Lincoln

Hi John check out the R3 band from Typenex

http://www.typenex.com/products_r3.html

http://www.typenex.com/vid_r3.html - demo video

My post really didn't pertain to this topic... I got confused, sorry.

Linda Frederick

Edited April 27, 201015 yr by bbbirder

I forgot to mention Digi-Trax has a product called RepliTrax that allows you to scan a bar code and automatically reprint it. It could be easily modifie to do a wristband and if you use a 2-D bar code all patient data can be contained in the 2-D code.

Richard

Surgery cuts off Blood Bank ID armbands at will. I don't like it, but we have reached an agreement. The bands are cut off only by anesthesia in OR. The band is put on the patient's chest (we don't have any chest cutters here) or forehead. Before the patient leaves the OR, anesthesia (same one who cut the band off) must put the band back on the patient. If the patient reaches PACU without the band, the crossmatch and all specimens are null and void, no exceptions. We have lots of anesthesia locums coming through but this still works pretty well for us.

I asked a question about barcode blood bands and I was referred to Typenex. When I was on their website I noticed the R3 attachment system. This looks like a great solution that will help eliminate your problem of the bands being removed by surgery

http://www.typenex.com/products_r3.html

http://www.typenex.com/vid_r3.html

Cheers

Recently, we switched to a different blood bank ID band and found out that surgery was routinely cutting off the blood bank ID bands that we had and reapplying them after surgery. The bands that we switched to cannot be reattached without taping. My question is how do other transfusion services deal with this problem? (Loss in the chain of identification) As a blood banker, I was shocked when I found out that this was so routine. Any anwers that you may have will be much appreciated.

This is addressed in our policy. Only someone from transfusion services has this authority. I understand why you were shocked. It is a dangerous practice.

We are considering the Typenex system. The reattachment system might work very well for us and surgery.

You may wish to check out HemaTrax-ID at www.digi-trax.com; click "Software" and then "HemaTrax-ID". There is even a video demo of this 1-D and 2-D bar coded ID band system for Transfusion Verification.

Richard

[ATTACH]312[/ATTACH]We worked with our organization's printshop and designed our own BBK labels.

Wristband.doc