Documentation/Blood Bank
Module guide · Clinical
Blood Bank
A blood unit's full life cycle: a donor gives blood, it's tested and processed into components, held in tracked inventory, crossmatched and issued against a clinical request, and transfused at the bedside with two-person verification, all under FDA cold-chain and hemovigilance rules.
What this module is for
Ten screens covering the donor side (registry, collection, testing), the supply side (inventory, cold storage, forecasting), and the clinical side (ordering, crossmatching, issuing, transfusing, and reporting reactions).
Who uses it
Blood bank coordinators and lab techs run donor, donation, and inventory screens. Physicians and nurses request and administer transfusions. Lab admins and directors handle cold-chain compliance, reports, and analytics.
Where to find it
Open Blood Bank from the sidebar. Ten screens; Temperature (cold-chain) is restricted to management-tier roles.
- 1
Collect
Register a donor, collect a donation, run infectious-disease testing, and process it into one or more usable components.
- 2
Store
Each component becomes a unit in tracked inventory, held in quarantine until released, with FEFO expiry management.
- 3
Order & crossmatch
A physician's blood request is reviewed, approved, crossmatched against a specific unit, and issued to a clinical location.
- 4
Transfuse & monitor
Nursing starts the transfusion with two-person verification, completes it, and reports any adverse reaction, filing an FDA report if needed.
A few terms you'll see throughout
Dashboard
A single-glance snapshot of donor pool health, current stock, and pending demand, plus links into every other screen.
Stat tiles
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active Donors / First-Time Donors | |
| O- Available | Units of the universal-donor type on hand. |
| Available Units | Total usable stock, all types and components. |
| Pending Requests / STAT Requests | |
| Near-Expiry Units | |
| Unreported Reactions | Transfusion reactions that occurred but haven't been formally filed yet. |
Charts break current stock down by blood type and by component. An alerts panel surfaces active low-stock/critical warnings, red for Critical severity, amber otherwise.
Donors
Register, search, and manage the eligibility lifecycle of blood donors.
"Register Donor" form
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Phone* | |
| Blood Type, Rh Phenotype, Alloantibodies | |
| Weight (kg) | Minimum 49.9 kg, reflecting the standard donation weight requirement. |
| Preferred Donation Type | Whole Blood, Apheresis Platelets/Plasma, Double Red Cells, Autologous, or Directed. |
| Donor consent obtained* | Checkbox; checking it auto-stamps today as the consent date. |
A donor's detail view runs a live eligibility check, a green "Eligible to donate" badge or a red one listing the specific blocking reasons (age, weight, time since last donation, deferral status). Defer Temp / Defer Permanent and Reinstate each prompt for a reason.
Active / First-Time — eligible to donate
Deferred (temporary) — blocked until a stated end date
Deferred (permanent) — blocked indefinitely
Pending Review / Autologous / Directed — special-purpose or awaiting screening
Donations
Records the actual collection event, infectious-disease test results, and processing into inventory-ready components.
"Collect Donation" form
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Donation Type | Whole Blood, Apheresis Platelets/Plasma, Double Red Cells, Autologous, or Directed. |
| Volume (mL) | Defaults 450. |
| Collection Site* | |
| Pre-Donation Vitals* | Hemoglobin (g/dL), systolic, diastolic, pulse — all required before saving. |
A donation moves forward through Collected → Processed → Tested → Released, each step's button only appears once the previous one is done. Add Test Result records infectious-disease testing (Negative/Reactive/Indeterminate); a Reactive result adds the donation to a "Pending Confirmatory Tests" queue. Process into Components lets staff pick which components (red cells, plasma, platelets, cryoprecipitate…) to derive, each becomes its own inventory unit. Release Units only appears after testing is complete.
Report Reaction
Inventory
Every physical blood unit: its status, expiry, storage location, and the alerts/thresholds that flag low stock before it becomes a shortage.
Tabs: Available Units, Expiring Soon (within 3 days), Emergency O- (fast access to universal-donor stock), Alerts, and Thresholds (per blood-type-and-component reorder points).
Quarantine — awaiting release from testing hold
Available — ready to reserve or issue
Reserved / Issued — held or sent for a specific request
Transfused — administered to a patient
Expired / Discarded — removed from usable stock
Per-unit actions
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Release | Only shown while in quarantine; moves the unit into usable stock. |
| Irradiate | Marks the unit irradiated, used for immunocompromised patients to prevent transfusion-associated GVHD. |
| Return | Only shown for issued units, e.g. sent to an OR but not used. |
| Discard | Requires a written reason; irreversible. |
| Storage | Updates the unit's physical storage location (Main/Satellite Refrigerator, Platelet Incubator, Plasma/Cryo Freezer, Irradiator…). |
Run Maintenance triggers on demand the same expiry-check and alert sweep that normally runs overnight.
Requests
The ordering, crossmatching, and issuing workflow connecting a physician's order to physical units sent to a clinical area, including emergency MTP activation.
"New Blood Request" form
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Patient, Ordering Physician* | |
| Component Type, Units Requested* | 1–20 units. |
| Blood Type | Can be left unset for O- emergency release. |
| Priority | Routine, Urgent, STAT, Massive Transfusion Protocol, or Emergency. |
| Special requirements | Irradiated, CMV-Negative, Leukoreduced, Washed, HLA-Matched checkboxes. |
| Emergency release | Checkbox for uncrossmatched O-negative, a documented bypass of normal crossmatch for true emergencies. |
Activate MTP
Workflow: Review → Approve → Crossmatch → Issue. Crossmatch picks a specific compatible unit and records a result (Compatible, Incompatible, Weakly Reactive, Pending, Not Required, or Waived Emergency). Issue requires selecting units already crossmatched/available and a destination location. Cancelling always requires a reason.
Transfusions
The bedside administration record, with mandatory two-person verification, and where any adverse reaction gets reported.
"Start Transfusion" form
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Blood Request, Blood Unit* | Only units already issued to that request are offered. |
| Verified By* | A second staff member confirming the two-person ID check. |
| Two-person label / bedside ID verification done* | Checkbox. |
| Patient consent obtained* | Checkbox. |
| Pre-Transfusion Vitals | Temperature, systolic/diastolic, pulse, SpO2. |
Complete Transfusion records volume transfused and post-transfusion vitals. Report Adverse Reaction (one of 13 reaction types, from mild allergic through anaphylactic, TRALI, or sepsis) can then be filed, followed by a required FDA Report number for serious reactions. The Reactions tab tracks which ones are still unfiled.
Temperature (cold-chain)
FDA-regulated monitoring (21 CFR 606.122) of storage equipment temperature, restricted to management roles.
Unacknowledged Excursions
Any reading outside a storage unit's acceptable range is flagged and must be Acknowledged with documented corrective action, not just noted.
Temperature Trend
A line chart of readings for one storage unit, with a dashed linear-regression trend line, a rising trend can flag refrigeration drift before it becomes a full excursion.
"Log Temperature Reading" form
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Storage Unit ID, Temperature (°C)* | |
| Location | Main/Satellite Refrigerator, Platelet Incubator, Plasma/Cryo Freezer, Irradiator, Quarantine Area, OR Cooler, ICU Satellite… |
| Source | Manual or Automated. Defaults Manual. |
Reports & forecast
Read-only reporting over a date range, and a predictive view of which blood groups are at risk of running short.
Reports covers hemovigilance (reactions by type), product utilization by component, and active donors by blood type. Forecast compares current stock against average weekly demand (over a 4/8/12/26-week trailing window) per blood group, flagging each as Shortage, Watch, or OK, with a rising/falling/stable trend and an estimated weeks of supply remaining.
Analytics
Operational-performance trends for management: wastage, donation volume, crossmatch turnaround, cold-chain compliance, and supply vs. threshold.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Wastage / Discard Trend | Discard rate over time and a breakdown of why units were discarded. |
| Donation Volume Trend | Weekly donation count and collected volume. |
| Crossmatch Turnaround Time | Average, median, and P90 minutes from order to crossmatch. |
| Cold-Chain Compliance | Readings vs. excursions per week, and an overall compliance percentage. |
| Supply vs. Threshold | Available units against each blood type's low-stock and critical thresholds. |
Good practices
Release quarantined units as soon as testing clears
Two-person verification is not optional
File the FDA report once a reaction is reported