Does anyone have experience with consolidation of blood banks with one being over an hours drive away? Would like to consider issue only of blood products for a smaller hospital and am concerned about delay in transport of samples.

I think centralized testing has been used in several parts of the country. Seattle and Pittsburg come to mind. But if you have a one hour transport time for samples, that means your stat turn around time would be at least 90 minutes. Critical patients who could get crossmatch compatible blood if testing is offered on-site would have to get emergency released uncrossmatched blood. Is that acceptable?

Does anyone have experience with consolidation of blood banks with one being over an hours drive away? Would like to consider issue only of blood products for a smaller hospital and am concerned about delay in transport of samples.

PamD is quite correct in saying that there are several places throughout the world now that use remote issue of blood, with a centralised testing laboratory I remember reading about such hospitals in the remote outback of Australia - is that correct Tim?).

In all cases, however, I believe I am correct that there is either a "hot-lab" on site for absolute emergencies and/or a fairly high number of group O, RhD Negative units for use at such times (not that such blood is the universal donor, I know).

There are a few large centralized laboratories in my area. Most have the centralized Transfusion Service, but maintain a blood bank at each of the individual facilities. The facility blood bank can handle anything required STAT or anything that is not complex...i.e. they can do a blood type and antibody screen and issue blood if negative, but if the ABS is positive it gets sent to the cenral lab.

When I was at AABB a few years ago, I saw a refrigerator that was designed for remote release. The laboratory had control of the inventory and assigned units to patients once testing is complete. The personnel at the remote site would go to the refrigerator, enter the patient information, and retrieve only the units that were designated for that patient. I don't remember who was selling it, but it was very high-tech.