Terri brings up a good point, there is a big difference between having a non-tech trained, and trained well that releases blood on a routine basis, and one who might do it once or twice a shift. And that is a maybe that they do it that often. How long is a break? 15 minutes to half an hour? One could easily go days without having to issue at during those times.

That being said, in the past, we did train non-BB techs to issue, but they were still techs who had had the education at some point in their careers. Now, it is only BB techs who issue. If we have to come off break, that is part of the job.

At my old hospital all the technical staff (MTs and MLTs) on the second and third shifts were required to be competent in Blood Banking, that way when the Blood Bank tech wanted to take a break they were able to do so uninterrupted. We rotated through every department each week to maintain competancy.

To those who said RNs fetch the blood unit: is the RN who picks up the Blood necessarily the same RN who will administer the unit?

Thank you.

Not necessarily, because of this we require the nurses to bring a form with the patient identification information before they can pick up the unit of blood. This way we do not have nurses coming down saying I need a unit of blood on someone I don't remember the name it's not my patient.

....... This way we do not have nurses coming down saying I need a unit of blood on someone I don't remember the name it's not my patient.

There are a lot of nurses who don't see this as a problem!!! Why positive patient ID when products are checked out is seen as a weird lab thing is something that is totally beyond my comprehension.

All techs check out blood here. On the other side of the fence, RNs and LPNs come from the floors and ER. Surg will send surgical techs to check out product at times. I don't really like that, but I have no veto powers. I insist that they train for the checkout process with me before they start doing it. Truth be told, I think the surgical techs take it more seriously and are more careful than some of the RNs.

We use a release form that is filled out based on the order and signed.