Category: Apheresis

Includes therapeutic and donor apheresis

Traceability of Processes in Transfusion Medicine using Medinfo Hematos IIG

drzeyd

Principle:

As part of good manufacturing process, we must trace everything in Transfusion Medicine, from registration through release of components.  The adoption of the Medinfo Hematos IIG computer system allows us to document anyone and everyone who “touches” the blood components and all processes.

Policy:

  1. Each staff member must use his/her personal log-in to sign into Medinfo Hematos IIG HIIG).  Each transaction is recorded with the User ID.
  2. Through the Medinfo Hematos IIG  computer system, we can trace:
    1. Each staff member who handled every step of every process.
    2. Which equipment was used in processing
    3. Which materials were used, including serial number of blood bags and selected reagents
    4. For each component, the donor is identified, including review of all test results, physical examinations, and questionnaire
    5. For each patient, all components received (from which each donor can be traced) and all testing results including transfusion reactions and any applicable protocols
    6. For each reagent lot numbers, expiration dates
    7. For each blood component, test results, serial numbers of blood, transfer, and pathogen-inactivation bags, dates and types of all modifications, including any changes in component outdates, disposition of unit (transfused, discarded, quarantined, etc.)
  3. Units can be quarantined based on each of the above parameters to block release to and/or usage at all blood transfusion services/hospital blood banks.
  4. Upon request of the Division Head, Transfusion Medicine/LIS, designated Transfusion Medicine and HIIG staff have access to trace any of the above.
  5. All traceability incidents will be reported as variances and documented according to standard procedures.

References:

  1. Workflow processes for Medinfo HIIG, Current Versions
  2. Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Current Edition, AABB, Bethesda, MD, USA

COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma CCP Product Issue

drzeyd

This is the conclusion of a continuing series of posts on the actual Medinfo design of the CCP donation and release processes and covers the transfer of completed units to the hospital blood banks.  It highlights specific changes made for the parallel CCP system I developed at HMC Doha.

A blood component is either located at a production site, a destination hospital blood bank site, or in transit.  Here a quarantine production site is specified.  The actual release process is documented in this post.

In summary, with the exception of the donor marker testing and immunohematology testing, all other CCP processes are handled by special quarantine processes.  There are abbreviated marker testing specific for plasma and a special Predonation screening to minimize wastage of the expensive apheresis kits.

Teaching Document: Validation Process

drzeyd

This is a teaching document for medical technology and transfusion fellows to explain the general structure of a validation.

Principle:

All validations must be planned.  A validation protocol must be prepared with specific criteria for acceptance.  All validations with attached evidence must approved by the Head, Transfusion Medicine.

Policy:

  1. A written validation protocol must be prepared in the advance and at least including the following:
    1. Specific parameters and number of iterations to be performed
    1. Designated staff to perform validation
    1. Documentary evidence of the testing
    1. Specific acceptability criteria
  2. The completed validation protocol must be submitted to the Division Head, Transfusion Medicine, or designee for review.
  3. Once the validation plan has been reviewed, it must be performed by the designated staff.
    1. Software validations will be performed in a specific test environment, not in the live, production system.
  4. The completed validation document, including screenshots of the software functionality if applicable, must be submitted to the Division Head, Transfusion Medicine for review.
  5. The equipment or software may only be used if the acceptability are met AND the validation is approved by the Division Head, Transfusion Medicine or designee.
  6. The completed validation protocol will be stored in the document control system.

Reference:

Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Current Edition, Bethesda, MD, USA

COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma CCP Thawing and Marker Testing

drzeyd

This is a part of a continuing series of posts on the actual Medinfo design of the CCP donation and release processes and covers CCP plasma thawing/labelling and donor marker testing.  It highlights specific changes made for the parallel CCP system.

Thus, the machine interfaces for testing are the same as for regular testing and are not included in this document. Likewise, donor immunohematology testing is the same as for regular donors and is not addressed here

Opinion: Ready after Fellowship?

drzeyd

I was recently interviewing a candidate for consultant in Transfusion Medicine.  Several months previously he had completed a fellowship in Transfusion Medicine in the United States.  He was applying for a position in my hospital in Qatar, which included seven hospitals and a blood donor center.  He had no training in donor management or therapeutic apheresis.

The successful candidate was to rotate on-call to cover all hospitals and the blood donor center.  He had never worked outside the United States.  Routinely, he did not review antibody panels since those workups were usually sent to the local blood provider there.  In his training, he had strictly followed US FDA and American version of AABB Standards.  His training center did not routinely do extended phenotypes (C, c, E, e, and Kell).  Extra testing and phenotyping had to be explicitly ordered by the clinician to get reimbursement.  Thus, there was no prophylactic antigen matching done on patients.  He did not feel comfortable reviewing antibody panels.

He had no experience with universal leukodepletion, pathogen-inactivation, platelet additive solutions, or automated component production such as the Terumo BCT Reveos.  He did not interpret donor marker testing results.

On the contrary in our organization, the transfusion medicine physician had to review all antibody panels (usually he was the most knowledgeable person for this).  We followed the Council of Europe CE and other practices that did prophylactic antigen matching.  We were also in charge of donor qualification and therapeutic apheresis and reviewed any product deviations from the Reveos and donor marker testing.

Clearly, this candidate did not practice transfusion medicine in the way that was necessary for our operations.  We could not cut him loose and make him responsible for a hospital transfusion service or the blood donor center.

Let us contrast this candidate for one being recruited for anatomic pathology/histopathology.  Grossing specimens, performing frozen sections, reading slides, diagnosing cases are the same everywhere in the world.  After completing his American certification, he could perform his profession almost anywhere in the world.

Transfusion medicine practices need to be localized and the selection of blood components and donor qualification are different.  Most of the world does not follow US FDA and has access to blood components, tests, and other technology that is different and maybe more advanced than his training in the USA.

I gave him a clinical scenario to interpret.  An AB patient with anti-K needs to be transfused with plasma.  Are there any special requirements for the plasma?  What if the only AB donor had anti-K would you use it?  What if the only RBCs available had not been phenotyped for Kell?  What would you do?

He did not know that we discard plasma with clinically significant alloantibodies routinely.  He did not want to phenotype the RBC unit for this patient since this had not been explicitly ordered by the clinician.

My recommendation was not to hire this candidate if there were others who had worked in European or similar systems to our own practices.  In effect, to use this physician, he would have to undergo a mini-fellowship to learn our practices since they were contrary to ours.  Unfortunately, we were very short-staffed and did not have resources to offer this training.

In summary, blood bank practices are very localized.  If you are considering to hire staff from other countries not following your standards, you must assess if the candidate is flexible to change his practices and/or whether you have the resources to train the physician.

Stem Cell Collection Logistics

drzeyd

Everyone is excited at the potential of using stem cells for research and therapy. Below is my presentation of the logistics necessary to get those stem collected in an orderly manner, especially in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also consider blood bank software logistics.