New Software Improves Blood-bank Safety, Record-keeping

PARSONS, Kan., Dec. 23, 2008 – Carolyn Green has filled out her last blood donor card and made her last logbook entry.

Thanks to a new blood banking software program, the laboratory at Labette Health now uses bar-coding technology to record and track each one of the more than 1,500 units of blood that pass through the laboratory each year. Green, who is in charge of the Labette Health Blood Bank, managed the transition to the new system, which became fully operational in November.

The former process relied on a system of handwritten logbook entries and card files to track donor and transfusion information. Because the American Red Cross sometimes requests information on donations and transfusions going back many years, the log books will have to be retained indefinitely, she said.

“I have books and books and books full of records going back to the 1970s. I’ll have to keep those, but from now on, everything will be in the computer,” she said.

Under the new system, a unique barcode now identifies each unit of blood and links it to computer files containing complete information on each donor. The information can be verified with a hand scanner at every point in the transfusion process, thereby decreasing the possibility of clerical errors.

“Patient safety is the key point. Clerical errors are the biggest cause of transfusion mistakes,” Green said.

The new software, SafeTrace TX by Wyndgate Technologies, is the same as that used by the American Red Cross Central Plains Blood Services Region headquartered in Wichita. The new system makes Labette Health’s Blood Bank one of the most advanced in the area, Green said. Fewer than 400 sites across the country use the SafeTrace TX technology, and Labette Health has already hosted demonstrations for groups from medical centers in other parts of the country.

“Our system took more than a year to validate,” she said. “The software is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a medical device, so it’s not like buying a copy of Word at Best Buy and putting it on your computer.”

The Labette Health Blood Bank is one of only a few non-metropolitan blood banks in the area that have been accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. 

Green who is accredited by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, is one of only approximately 4,000 Specialists in Blood Banking nationwide. She received her accreditation in 2001 after completing a four-year medical technology course at Wichita State University and a two-year program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. That was followed by a rigorous certification exam.