On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 8:31 PM, heathervaught said:

Stick it back in the thaw bath.  If it resuspends it is fibrinogen.  If it doesn't, then it's activated fibrin.

So would it ever be okay to use a product that has activated fibrin in it?  I don't think it is because I can't be sure of the potency of the unit after some of the factors have been used to make a clot, but I have had some conflicting advice.

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 3:55 PM, Mabel Adams said:

So would it ever be okay to use a product that has activated fibrin in it?  I don't think it is because I can't be sure of the potency of the unit after some of the factors have been used to make a clot, but I have had some conflicting advice.

Our supplier suggests putting refrigerated plasma with questionable globs (for lack of better term) in the water bath.  If it goes away in the warm water, it was cryo and is fine to use.  If it remains, we consider it clotted, discard, and ask for supplier credit.  Thoroughly thawing the plasma before sticking in fridge greatly reduces formation of cryo.

We are in the process of getting our Hematrax up and running. We are using Meditech CS 5.67 to print a Product/Date label from the Process Units routine. Our expiration time is based on the time of thaw which also prints out on the transfusion tag. The Hematrax label only shows the time as the last 4 digits printed with the Julian date beneath the barcode, The actual expiration date prints out below, but not the time and the label reads "Expiration Date". Does anyone know if this is acceptable or if there is a way to get both to print apart form the barcode?

We also have the standalone Zebra printer as backup and it prints both the date and time.

KDAVIS:  You may have this figured out by now, but if you are converting to Thawed Plasma with a 5 day outdate, the outdate time is assumed to be midnight and then the Hematrax printer does not print a time on the label.  This is how it should work.  However, if you are only using a 24 hour expiration, then the time should print with the date.  On the Hematrax stand alone program, you have to select either date or date/time for the expiration field.

Side note question:  We have been dating our thawed plasma for expiration exactly 5 days (120 hours) after thawing.  AABB standards indeed use the term "5 days".  We did not realize that they would be usable up to midnight on the fifth day.  Does this sound correct? Can someone confirm this?

Thanks, Scott

19 minutes ago, SMILLER said:

Side note question:  We have been dating our thawed plasma for expiration exactly 5 days (120 hours) after thawing.  AABB standards indeed use the term "5 days".  We did not realize that they would be usable up to midnight on the fifth day.  Does this sound correct? Can someone confirm this?

Thanks, Scott

Yes.  Our 5-Day plasma expires at 2359 on fifth day after thawing regardless of the time thawed.

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2015 at 7:27 AM, SMILLER said:

We've been converting FFP to TP directly for some time now.  All of our thawed units start with a 5-day outdate.

 

Scott

We too change directly from FFP to Thawed Plasma, and have been doing so for at least 15 years and possibly prior to that also.

Scott,

Our 5 day thawed plasma (which is all we make) used to expire at midnight as well.  But the nurses are documenting transfusions in Meditech now using TAR, and they scan all the barcodes.  Meditech shows the component as having been made at a specific time, so that is what we have to put as the expiration time when we print our Hematrax labels.  Does that make sense?

It makes sense, except that it appears that you may be tossing out product before its time because of a computer-clerical restriction.  We are using Mediware with Sunrise as our hospital system.  We may be correcting our expiration protocol pending some more checking.

If we do change, we will modify the expiration on our labels to print a barcode for 23:59 on the fifth day after thawing. Apparently you are unable to do this with your system?

Scott

What we have found out is that AABB does not require the expiration time to be printed along with the date unless it is less than 72 hours before expiration. We have found that if we print a new Hematrax label on a unit within 72 hours of expiration the label states Expiration Date/Time and the time prints next to the date. So...is anyone monitoring units on the shelf and reprinting the label once a unit hits that <72 hours mark?

Scott,

I can print any expiration time on the Hematrax labels, and before TAR it did print out 2359, but since TAR when the nurses scan the labels, they get a conflict if the Hematrax label says 2359 because Meditech puts it at exactly 5 days.  We don't really waste much FFP so I don't worry about it.

Similar to Molly, above.  Except we only keep 2 thawed ABs of plasma on hand at all times.

Scott

 

On 10/26/2016 at 4:23 PM, mollyredone said:

Scott,

Our 5 day thawed plasma (which is all we make) used to expire at midnight as well.  But the nurses are documenting transfusions in Meditech now using TAR, and they scan all the barcodes.  Meditech shows the component as having been made at a specific time, so that is what we have to put as the expiration time when we print our Hematrax labels.  Does that make sense?

We have Meditech and our nurses also use TAR.  We have our expiration time set to 2359 and the RNs have no problems with scanning the barcodes as such.  How do you have your dictionary set up for the product?  Do you have it in days or hours?  We have ours set as days 5.

Thanks, BankerGirl!  I will have to check in Meditech for the dictionary to see if it is set up for hours instead of days.

I just tested Meditech and I can change the expiration time from "now" to 2359.  That is at least a work-around until I can check the dictionaries.

Our dictionary says 5 days and frozen expires at 2359, so I don't know why TAR can't scan it if Hematrax says it expires at 2359.  One of those computer mysteries.

Edited November 2, 20168 yr by mollyredone
more info

Last post!  When our IT guy checked the dictionary, it did say 5 days, but there was a 0 in the hours, so it defaulted to 5 days exactly.  He has tested it now and it defaults to 2359.  Yay!  Now I just need to update procedures that state to change expiration time in Hematrax.  Does it ever end??

My facility is keen to convert FFP thawed after 24 hrs to 5 days.  However, may I know if any validation studies (eg checking Factor 8 levels etc) are required before we do this?

We are outside of USA, but AABB accredited facility.

On 5/18/2015 at 5:27 AM, SMILLER said:

We've been converting FFP to TP directly for some time now.  All of our thawed units start with a 5-day outdate.

 

Scott

We've also directly converted for quite some time. 

No validation studies required?

On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 8:11 AM, lim26 said:

No validation studies required?

No,   not that I am aware

Edited February 27, 20178 yr by R1R2

Hi everyone-

We are a bit late to the game here - we had been keeping our thawed FFP at 24 hour expiration date and now with the Convalescent Plasma build I wanted to have it expire in 5 days - well the reason why we never went to 5 day originally was that it required some sort of FDA registration to do so?  Can anyone update me as to the process to convert from 1 day to 5 days other than the obvious LIS build out, labels etc - is there an FDA requirement still?  Thank you!

On 5/18/2015 at 7:27 AM, SMILLER said:

We've been converting FFP to TP directly for some time now.  All of our thawed units start with a 5-day outdate.

 

Scott

We do this as well.  Instead of going to 24 hour plasma at the time of thaw, and then to five day plasma the next day, we go directly to five day plasma at the time of thaw.  Any time you relabel a unit is an opportunity to mislabel a unit (product code and expiration date especially), and eventually someone will do that.

20 hours ago, bldbnkr said:

Hi everyone-

We are a bit late to the game here - we had been keeping our thawed FFP at 24 hour expiration date and now with the Convalescent Plasma build I wanted to have it expire in 5 days - well the reason why we never went to 5 day originally was that it required some sort of FDA registration to do so?  Can anyone update me as to the process to convert from 1 day to 5 days other than the obvious LIS build out, labels etc - is there an FDA requirement still?  Thank you!

FDA inspectors have told me that they have jurisdiction over all transfusion services.  They just choose to restrict themselves to sites that perform certain modifications (e.g. washing and/or irradiating).