We currently store all patient specimens for 14 days in a tray where the days are seperated by dividers and where each row is labeled with the day (Mon, Tue, etc..). Could I please have some feed back on how other hospitals store their patient specimens? Thanks so much!

We keep ours in divided boxes for 4 days. Each specimen is individually bagged. After 4 days, all the bags go into a big zip-style bag with the date of collection and the date to discard (14 days). Those bags are kept in date order on the refrigerator shelf and rotated so that the most current is in front. This takes up far less space than racks.

We use 14 square red hard plastic "biohazard/contaminated" containers. In the morning we throw away the tube in the red container from 14 days ago, relabel it with yesterday's date, and put yesterday's patient samples and labeled segments from donor units that were transfused yesterday. So, it is very similar to your arrangement......just depends on your storage space and which system works best for you.

Donna

We store our specimens for 14 days in individual racks labeled with the date. At midnight, the night shift tech disposes of the samples that are 14 days old and labels that rack for today.

We store them for 14 days: we colour code the upper part of each tube with coloured scotch tape: blue=Monday, red=Tuesday, etc. Then 1 week later we put this rainbow colored rack in the refrigerator of the quarantine room where it stays another week and start a new rack. After 2 weeks of Monday we throw away Mon + Tuesday, on Wed we trash Wed and Thursday and on Friday we trash Fri, Sat and Sun. The requirement is 10 days. So all samples have stayed a minimum of that long and we dispose every MWF.

(Hope I explained it clearly)

Liz J

Most of you mention 10 - 14 day storage times. Are they stored frozen or at 4°C

Steve

The specimens are stored in a refrigerator (at approximately 4C), not frozen.

The reason that you see different facilities using different storage periods between 10-14 days: We are required to retain the samples for 10 days after the transfusion. It is possible for a patient sample to be drawn and the crossmatches performed on "day 1", but the patient might not be transfused until 2 or 3 days later, so now you got 10 days + 3 days = 13 days that we have to keep the speciments. So for many of us, it is just simpler to keep the specimens 2 weeks (14 days.)

Donna

The specimens are stored in a refrigerator (at approximately 4C), not frozen.

Hi Donna

The reason I ask the question is that we only use EDTA anticoagulated samples and freeze them once the Group and Screen has been done and thaw for cross-matching. The UK guidelines say that EDTA plasma can only be stored for 7 seven days at 4°C.

Those of you using automated analysis must I assume be using EDTA samples?

Steve

AABB Standard 5.11.4 requires us to retain patient samples and a segment from any red-cell-containing component at refrigerated temperatures for at least 7 days after transfusion. So, if specimen draw date is day 0 and you can issue until midnight of day 3, you need to keep until midnight of day 10, at least. We do the rack rotation and keep a segment when we crossmatch. Some places remove a segment when issuing and keep the segs 7 days. We can extend samples on pre-ops that meet criteria and when we do that, we have to keep those samples and segments in a different location so we can keep them the correct amount of time. At one place we could extend for 14 days and we kept 28 days of samples, but that took a lot of refrigerator space.

Yes, the AABB Standard 5.11.4 states that patient samples shall be stored at refrigerated temperatures for at least 7 days after transfusion.

With a maximum 3 days for XM + 7 makes for the 10 days of storage and for convenience we keep the samples for 14 days.

Liz

Whoops!! I made a mistake in my original post. As others have written, AABB Standards says we must keep the samples at least 7 days (not 10 days) after transfusion.

My weak mind automatically adds the 7 days to the 3 days and thinks in term of a "10 days" requirement. (Well, in my defense, at least the fact that I can add 7 and 3 and come up with the correct answer of "10" demonstrates that my basic math skills are OK, ya think?)

Thanks so much everyone for your feedback!