Principle:
Blood components must be maintained at specified temperatures to avoid hemolysis, bacterial contamination, and maintain full efficacy (e.g. coagulation factor activity.)
Policy:
- Freshly collected whole blood for blood component preparation must be kept between 20-24C if platelets are to be made. Otherwise, it must be maintained between 1 and 10 C.
- Prepared RBCs and thawed plasma must be transported between 1 and 10 C.
- Platelets (pools and apheresis), thawed cryoprecipitate, and granulocyte concentrate must be transported at 20-24 C.
- Frozen components (frozen RBCs, FFP, FP24, cryoprecipitate) must be kept frozen during transport.
- There must be an appropriate means of documenting that the proper temperature was maintained. Examples of compliance may include:
- LCD stickers that change color if the component goes outside the selected temperature range.
- Digital temperature recording systems—Examples:
- TempTale ® or other temperature recording devices (added to a transport container without a temperature-controlled container)
- Temperature controlled transport containers with integral recording systems
- The recording session for each transport episode should be downloaded, reviewed and saved.
- If the temperature goes outside the specified temperature range, the components cannot be used for transfusion or manufacture.
- All devices must be validated to meet their specified temperature-recording capabilities before being used.
- Specific SOPs for the use of the selected monitoring devices must be prepared and in use.
Note the different temperature ranges for refrigerated components stored in the blood bank (1-6C) versus transport (1-10C).
References:
Section 5.6.5, Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Current Edition, AABB, Bethesda, MD, USA