One of my larger projects for the last few weeks has been to update our procedure for antibody identification.
 

Most of the individuals who have been involved in reviewing/validating the procedure seem pretty satisfied with it but some of the techs think it's too detailed in some regards and insufficiently detailed in others. I do have a habit of trying making very long procedures that cover as many bases as possible but at the same time I didn't want to make the procedure too rigid because antibodies don't always' follow the rules' and in some cases there's a lot of art and intuition to performing an antibody identification.

 

The procedure includes:

• Notification of caregivers of delay in testing/rbc availability
• Documentation requirements
• Acquiring transfusion history
• Process for performing full/selected cell panels
• Process for performing exclusion analysis (rule outs)
• Algorithms with suggested methods to perform in the event that the basic rule outs aren't enough and/or the autocontrol is positive.
• Probability
• What common antibodies should be ruled out with every AB ID and what to do if unable to rule something out
• How antibodies to low incidence antigens are handled
• How we handle antibody of undetermined specificity
• How/when to use expired panel cells
• Directions for IRL consultation
• How to determine the clinical significance of usually insignificant antibodies (anti-M)
• And a chart demonstrating the likely clinical significance of antibodies in transfusion/pregnancy

I'm curious if anyone would be willing to share their documented procedure. If anyone is interested in having a look at what we're working on, PM me.

 

Thanks in advance and happy Friday!!

Anyone?

I messaged you!

I just sent you message with our SOP

Thank you to everyone who messaged me. If anyone else is willing to send I'm always willing to read. Please feel free to PM me.

Consider using flow charts to reduce the volume of text in the SOP.

Thank you to everyone who messaged me. If anyone else is willing to send I'm always willing to read. Please feel free to PM me.

I would be curious to read yours Goodchild, I am just starting a new supervisor role and there is no SOP for QC, MTP, AB ID... so I have a lot of work to do!

Does anyone have a good software for flowcharts, or do most of you just use Excel for that?

I use Microsoft Visio.

I also use Microsoft Visio. Frenchie I'll get back to you during the work week.