Who titres and who washes out of group platelets?  

I don't do any but if id did I would titer.  This kind of depends on the size institution and the plt type availability.  At my current facility I can only get group O or group A - depends what is available.  Most of my plts are going to go to onc pts.  I cannot return product with a high titer . . .  don't have the ability to wash . . . unfortunate but that is the way it is here.

We titer all of our O platelets, we wash for transplants when there is an ABO mismatch or people who have had severe reactions.  We are one of the lucky ones, we have many platelets on hand at all times.  Optimum level = 40, minimum = 30.

We're not as big as Cliff's institution, but we keep an inventory of ~8.  We do not titer, we'll wash for severe reactions.

We are a pediatric hospital.  We would give one dose of incompatible platelets (if ABO compat are not available) without obtaining any approval from the med director.  If we need to give more than one dose (i.e. one pooled or one plateletpheresis for an adult), we would obtain MD approval and likely volume-reduce the plasma volume before issuing.  We do not titer any platelet components.

We stock only type A platelets. We don't titer and have no way to wash them. We do order type specific if requested but that may mean delaying infusion until the next day. For pediatric emergencies, we will transfuse the A platelets but order type specific if not an emergency.

We will probably have PAS platelets by the end of the year.  With, I think, 60% less plasma in the platelets, this risk should go down and our policy of not being able to do titers or wash ABO incompatible will have less risk.  We won't give plasma incompatible platelets to small peds patients without MD approval.