We are a Level 1 Trauma Center and are having a contraversy over who should transport blood as well as return unused blood especially in massive situations. Neither the Blood Bank nor ER have adequate staff to handle transport in these emergent situations and the transport departmant response is not adequate to meet massive bleeds. Are there alternatives other than a refrigerator in the trauma bays?

You can have anyone transport blood products - just make certain they are trained and it is documented.

I understand that any trained individual may transport blood however we do not have extra staff to be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and I do not want to pay techs for this service. ER states they do not either and do not want to pay nurses so I was wondering how other folks have resolved a similar circumstance and whether they have specific trauma blood runners.......or is there another alternative.

Thanks

Our patient care areas all have what they call Patient Care Technicians (essentially nursing assistants...many of whom were phlebotomists who used this as a career advancement) who often run blood. The ER uses these to run blood. We have Ward Secretaries and volunteers trained to pick up blood.

You could look at pneumatic tube transport if you have convenient stations.

Our hospital has Pharmacy Technicians that are constantly delivering drugs/medication all around the hospital. Several years ago we trained them to deliver blood products for the Blood Bank. We just page them when we need them. They have been a tremendous help to us!

We have a STAT runner that responds to Traumas, Code Whites, etc. The runners all report to Central Distribution and one person is assigned to carry the pager every day and they are all trained to know where to report and what to do for each kind of page they receive. It works really well for us.