Currently hospital nursing policies do not allow for blood products to follow the patients when they are transferred from one floor to another or to OR from the floor unless the product is currently hanging.  This was also true the last hospital that I worked at so I was assuming that there is a regulation of some kind stating this.   It does not look like this has anything to do with AABB/CLIA/CAP regs.  Does anyone know if there is a regulation against this?  

I am not aware of any such regulation here is the USA.

 

Donna

There is none in the uk - it can be signed out of one blood fridge and into another also long as there is no breach in cold chain.

Edited November 20, 201311 yr by Auntie-D

No regs, just risk related to proper storage and proper patient ID and probably a bit about not losing track of where a unit might end up.

  We issued our open heart surgery patients' blood to the OR and if not used int he OR, it went with them to the Open Heart Unit and was placed in their refrigerator until the next morning.. The next morning, if the blood had not been transfused, was returned to the Blood Bank. This was done in my last job.

We allow blood issued to the OR heart rooms in a cooler to be transferred with the patient when they go to ICU. 

 

I don't think we have ever had the question asked about transferring it anywhere else.  I agree with Mabel that the biggest risk is misplacement of the unit.

You are soo lucky to have this policy in place.

Enjoy it and work with it, as a positive practice.

 

We do not have such a policy.

So, Patients blood and coolers move about without notification to the BB as to where the patient is or the Blood product has been relocated to.

Patients are moved from rooms to OR to new rooms without any entry into the computer system, no one knowes where the blood products have been relocated to and may not know where the cooler has gone - that now has an coolant expiration time to deal with. 

You are soo lucky to have this policy in place.

Enjoy it and work with it, as a positive practice.

 

We do not have such a policy.

So, Patients blood and coolers move about without notification to the BB as to where the patient is or the Blood product has been relocated to.

Patients are moved from rooms to OR to new rooms without any entry into the computer system, no one knowes where the blood products have been relocated to and may not know where the cooler has gone - that now has an coolant expiration time to deal with.

Incident report it every time it happens - someone will soon HAVE to take responsibility

Incident report it every time it happens - someone will soon HAVE to take responsibility

Agree 100%