Can you please share how you satisfy this portion of the requirement? 

Transporters of blood components and tissue should be trained and competent in prompt delivery.

 

Do you maintain competency records for blood transporter personnel?

 

If so, what frequency does you asses the competency?   Once at orientation, yearly, etc.

 

Thanks.

 

Oh boy, not a thing. We have an SOP on the transport of products and the responsibility of the courier at the time of issue but nothing about education. This could be tricky which is why I am responding- we had a CAP inspection earlier this year and they nailed US on our lack of records of nursing education about administering blood. CAP held firm in their interpretation of the standard saying that it was the BB's responsibility to make sure all nurses where educated about blood administration!!! Needless to say we were not happy. The inspection team was OK however once we came up with (extremely poor documentation but that's another story) documentation through Nursing Education that the two nurses audited during the CAP inspection were annually trained in Blood administration. Watch out ladies and gents!

Hospital staff that transports blood products are trained on the delivery protocol (and what to do and not do, then, etc.)  They are then observed/evaluated by their superior.

 

Is annual competency testing actually required?  I realize that it is a good idea, but isn't annual competency testing mandatory only for "testing" procedures?

My system will only do the transport training once at new hire orientation. Documentation for the annual transfusionist training (blood administration and recognization of a transfusion reaction) and the blood transport are part of our LMS and electronically administered and documentation retained.

The BB develops the training or approves it before it is loaded into the LMS.

Good luck. alana

Our drivers have an SOP to sign yearly and carry an abbreviated copy of the SOP in their transport at all times. Couriers have a minimum standards that they have to sign for and adhere to and also have a copy of the SOP. Samples send via taxi go with very basic instructions and on leaving the drivers are informed of the importance of the delivery - most feel quite priveleged IME. All packaging contains information on what to do, and where to send it to in the event of an accident.

I was worried about this as well for CAP, especially since the rest of the hospital is JC inspected.  But I worked with a nursing educator and pointed out the annual testing requirement and we put together a LEARN module on the computer that nurses must do annually.  They have to answer a certain number of questions, and if they do not pass 100% they have to go through the powerpoint presentation and retake the quiz.

Based on these responses, I’m working with nursing at the moment to draft a competency checklist for the transport of blood.  Nursing is already doing an annual competency for the administration of blood, but they feel that this transport training could be done once at orientation with records retained.  I’m torn on the frequency for this and the CAP standard does not guide us here.  Is there a reference that can be cited to have this done annually?

I say just train them once and document it.  I can't imagine why an annual competency would be necessary for this.

 

Thank goodness we send up our blood by pneumatic tube; so far no one has asked us to do competencies on him (her?).

I think our pneumatic tube might be a her. If it were a him, it would never ask for directions before it goes anywhere.

Do you think this standard may apply only to those places that use transporters rather than Nursing personnel to p/u components?  The education/training is vastly different for the 2 positions.

We have a clipboard in our signout area. Whoever picks up blood must read and sign the document as a one-time training event:

A copy of the file is attached. At the top left is a place for a logo or facility ID

 

 

Blood Transporter Training

 

By signing below I signify that I understand the following requirements for transporting blood components:

• Blood must be transported directly to the area where it will be transfused (no side trips).
• Blood should never be put anywhere where it could be heated or cooled.
• If blood is issued in a cooler it must be kept in the cooler during transport.
• Do not leave blood unattended at any point.
• Hand blood over to an appropriate staff member immediately.
• Blood must be returned to the blood bank as soon as possible (no more than 30 minutes) if it is not going to be transfused.
• When the Blood Bank tech reads patient and blood information you must verbally read back the following
  • Unit number
  • Medical Record Number
  • Patient’s name.
  • Blood Type of unit and patient.

 

Date

Printed Name

Signature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BloodIssueTransporterTraining2.doc

Do you think this standard may apply only to those places that use transporters rather than Nursing personnel to p/u components?  The education/training is vastly different for the 2 positions.

I would think so since the training for nurses is already much more than transporting.

We do similar to dmpollock.  We have an informational sheet with the same type of information plus a few other things like no food or drink in the lab.  First time transporter we hand them the sheet and review the salient points and then have them sign the clipboard.