Hello... looking for some advice about records of antibody workups. We currently keep a folder for every patient with clinically significant antibodies. In this folder, we keep the antigrams , antigen typings, etc of each time we work up that patient. These are then stored indefinitely in a large file cabinet..  Every few years, I pull out the expired patients. Searching for expired patients used to be fairly easy.... I could pull them up using their SS# on Ancestry.com but that is no longer an option. 

How do you store these types of records and how do you eventually weed them out? I should say that we are a small rural hospital and we are only talking about 4 large file cabinet drawers.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

 

Our stuff is stored for 10 years, with a set of notebooks for each year.  The patient's records are stored alphabetically within each year, with the current year's set is found in the Blood Bank.  We do not collate individual patient's records from year-to-year.   We do not search for expired patients in order to clean our printed records.  We just toss a year's worth when it is 10 years old.

Scott

Our computer system (Cerner) updates the patient record with the antibody, antigen typing, any comments-problems, etc.  which is available each time we enter the patient record for testing.   Our past 2 computer systems have been uploaded with the patient history files so they are available indefinitely.  We keep the patient ABID paper work-ups alphabetically by year in a file.  We keep patient antigram worksheets for 10 years as required by CAP then discard.

It's challenging for us to look them up too.  We are a large teaching hospital.  We have at least 4 file cabinets full.  We recently hired a college intern for the summer, part of her job was to look through all of the folders (about 11,000 of them) to see who was dead in our records, and who was over 100.  We sent about 2,000 folders offsite.  We added the birthdate to the folders so it will be easier in the future to see who's over 100.

We keep two years in the department.  At the end of every year we go through our file cabinet and if we haven't seen  the patient in the previous 2 years, their file is pulled and put into long term storage.  We discard after 10 years.  The actual history stays with the patient in the computer forever

We do pretty much what Scott does. Once we go live with SafeTrace TX, we will scan the patient's antibody ID paperwork into their STTX record and shred the paper.

Was reading this feed and it eased my anxious mind!.  Does everyone store transfusion reaction work ups in a similar fashion? (10 years then dump).  Or do you store Transfusion Reaction Workups indefinitely?  We use Sunquest and like Cerner, the info is stored permanently.  However, a joint commission standard states that a healthcare organization must store info in a way that it could be accessed if the system was to fold and close.  I guess we back up at an offsite location? 

In the UK, we have to store everything, electronic or paper, for thirty years.  After thirty years, we can no longer be sued, and so we can throw stuff away.

11 hours ago, Julie Anderson said:

Was reading this feed and it eased my anxious mind!.  Does everyone store transfusion reaction work ups in a similar fashion? (10 years then dump).  Or do you store Transfusion Reaction Workups indefinitely?  We use Sunquest and like Cerner, the info is stored permanently.  However, a joint commission standard states that a healthcare organization must store info in a way that it could be accessed if the system was to fold and close.  I guess we back up at an offsite location? 

I understand the “system” in this contex is the hospital not the LIS.  So if the hospital is a stand alone and is sold the information must be moved into the new hospital LIS system or be available as a clone of the original LIS (or be in an accessible form, eg excel, paper etc). If the hospital is part of a network and is sold or closes; the information remains with the original healthcare organization. If the hospital as a stand alone closes; the information must be held in an accessible format like excel or paper though I am not sure who would actually keep the records, probably the lawyers? 

I have been told by the BB leadership that antibody workups need to be kept for ever per either AABB or CAP(don't remember which was they said). This doesn't make sense to me as the results are in the computer unless they believe the workups would be subpoenaed if sued. Anyway since our file cabinet is bursting at its seams so I am in the process of removing the workups of anyone born before 1940 and haven't seen in 5 years and moving them to long term storage

The BBIS records should meet US regulations.  Our BBIS could print a report of all antibodies if we closed and needed to give that to lawyers.  We always do data conversions when we change BBIS vendors. Reviewing old panels and testing records is sometimes informative so we keep them and try to weed out those who have died.  Familysearch.org has a records search function that may help.  You have to create an account I think, but it is free.  They also have a family tree search and usually won't publish a record on someone still living.  The people in that tree will have records attached to them, that are probably even correct!  They connect with Find-a-Grave and BillionGraves records too.

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 4:26 PM, Mabel Adams said:

The BBIS records should meet US regulations.  Our BBIS could print a report of all antibodies if we closed and needed to give that to lawyers.  We always do data conversions when we change BBIS vendors. Reviewing old panels and testing records is sometimes informative so we keep them and try to weed out those who have died.  Familysearch.org has a records search function that may help.  You have to create an account I think, but it is free.  They also have a family tree search and usually won't publish a record on someone still living.  The people in that tree will have records attached to them, that are probably even correct!  They connect with Find-a-Grave and BillionGraves records too.

Is there a way to verify that information is correct? You're otherwise relying on a third-party data collection service, so I'm just curious how we can use sites like Ancestry or BillionGraves

I guess you can triangulate the data by checking several record sources but I am not sure that anything, including our own EMR, is perfect. Expired patients are still in our BBIS, we just move their ABID records to the deceased folder for another few years before discarding them.  You could certainly mix up two patients who live in your area and share both full names and DOB using something like BillionGraves.