With many laboratory going paperless, I was wondering has anyone changed to electronic transfusion slips?  And if so, how is the blood product identified for the patient?

We don't have a paper transfusion tags, just a sticky label that we affix to a "toe tag" and tag to the unit.  We only use paper forms for emergency release functions since often times that blood is not given.

 

Our EHR is Epic and the nurses use the "transfusion documentation flowsheet" and the "transfusion navigator".

We are getting ready to go paperless for transfusions. We have a tag we will attach to the units with a rubber band that has the necessary patient/unit information. We will have a blood bank report form in the patient EMR that will match up the patient with the donor #, blood type, etc. The patient ID information (name, MR#) is on the patient's armband. And to make it even more fun , we are going to start using FinalCheck (the padlock system) soon as well. The combination for the lock will only be available to nursing on the patient's armband and it will be in a hidden field on the blood bank report. I'm sure the nurses are going to hate it, at least for awhile, because they are going to have to open 3 screens on their laptops at bedside to see that report form for the unit. They are already using an electronic transfusion flowsheet.