Just curious what everyone else uses for refrigeration of RBCs in open heart surgery when surgery does not have their own refrigerators.   We use the Igloo Playmate Elite cooler which have been approved for up to four units of RBCs for up to six hours with certain ice packs.  We only have three of these coolers and can't find more (according to supervisor).  The problem is that our open heart surgery load has increased to five or six a day on some days and we are working around the problem of not having enough coolers/ice packs by reusing the coolers that same day but placing bags of ice from our ice maker in them rather than the already used ice packs.   This method hasn't been validated which makes me very uneasy but no moves have been made to find a different refrigeration method other than an online search for more of what we currently have.   So, any suggestions?  Thanks!

I like the Credo cooler.  It stays cool (1-6 C) for over 12 hours.   The inserts need to be stored in the freezer before use so you would need extra coolers.  

We use Coleman coolers.  We validate them with a specific packing arrangement, so that would make me uneasy as well!

We use greenbox coolers by thermosafe.com. Validated them to hold 1-6 C for 6 days at room temp. They are a bit on the heavy side but they sure hold temp

As far as ice goes, we use it for all of our coolers as they have been validated with it.  I guess you would have to go back and revalidate if you switched to all ice.  The advantage is not having to validate both packs and ice in the future.

 

Scott

ChekLab,Inc.  630-896-0574