Background/Case Studies: AABB Standards require that blood components issued from a transfusion (TX) facility be labeled with the intended recipient’s required identifiers, donation identification or pool number, and interpretation of compatibility tests. The TX administration record (TAR) that accompanies each blood component also requires the ABORh of the patient and donor, special testing, component code, and expiration date of the component. Information (info) on these documents must be legible and accurate to avoid misidentification in the pre-TX patient identification verification process. Many TX services utilize a blood bank computer system (BBCS) to generate this info that is affixed on the component. When lacking such a system, as in the case of a downtime, there is a need for a process to print this info on the required documents to meet all standards and regulations.
Study
Design/Methods: To provide an alternate method for the current process of handwriting the info during a BBCS downtime, a mail merge (MM) was established to complete TARs electronically. The template document was created in Microsoft Word, adding placeholders for the variable patient and unit info, and aligned to print on the current form utilized by the BBCS. The data source for the Word document was created in Microsoft Excel (XL) and was designed to include a column for each critical piece of info that will populate placeholders on the template. Drop down menus were used in the XL file for Patient and Donor ABO/Rh type and Crossmatch type. The template and the data source were then merged to create a complete record for each blood component. A validation was performed to document that the MM process would work correctly and consistently. The validation included printing TARs for each component type, ABORh type, and crossmatch result multiple times. The maximum number of antigens/attributes established from the current BBCS were printed to validate the size of the field.
Results/Findings: The MM was successfully setup so any data that was entered in the XL file would populate into the appropriate fields in the Word document. During the validation, there were 66 TARs printed. 100% of the info on these TARs matched the info entered on the XL spreadsheet and the spacing on the TAR was adequate to accommodate characters. Conclusions: Patient identification and donor info must be accurately displayed on TARs and labels. Generating this info electronically allows for better legibility, uniformity, and allows for a method of record keeping for units crossmatched when a BBCS is not available. It is important to have such a method in place that has proven to work accurately and consistently to maintain adequate workflow and help ensure patient safety.
Importance of research: Scheduled and unscheduled computer downtime are realities in laboratories. In the blood bank, the computer system provides documents with information that must be present on the blood component. All documentation that accompanies the component must be legible and accurate to avoid unnecessary delays or patient mix up. Having a mechanism to consistently and efficiently document all of the information is key during such computer downtimes. Our mail merge solution addresses this issue.
