I'm trying to find out what paperwork I need to save and what I can do away with. Historically, this blood has printed copies from Meditech and hand written information, to the point that some things are in triplicate. We keep copies of the packing slips and invoices showing units that are brought in-house, and then print a Meditech paper report "Unit Inquiry", then hand write the units on a log (for all platelet units). For RBC units, we print every retype worksheet that we create. But, at the end of the month, I print a final unit disposition with details, that shows when the units were brought in, what the retypes were with reactions, who did the retypes and on what day they were done. This same report also shows if the unit was transfused (and to whom), transferred or destroyed. So, basically, I'm wondering why we keep all the paper copies (for years) when the end of the month reports that are also kept for years, are a complete listing? What is everyone else doing? I'd like to move into the "paperless" age.

One lab I worked with Meditech and the only Blood Bank items we printed were reports for Transfusion Committee and Unit Final Disposition for units recalled or lookback. Anything else we looked up in Meditech--if someone wanted a particular report, we printed it. One word of caution, be sure the Meditech dictionaries are set to save items for length of time that you need, ie. QC is not set to save for three years that TJC wants to see. Check others.