Keep blood products safe. And while you’re at it, it’s always a good time to donate.
Key Takeaways:
- Blood shortages are a serious issue that can impact patient care and well-being, with the need for blood transfusions being constant.
- Proper temperature control is crucial for maintaining the quality and safety of blood products during storage and transportation.
- SpotSee offers innovative solutions, like ColdChain Complete and WarmMark, to help blood banks optimize their cold chain processes and ensure the integrity of blood products.
- By donating blood, individuals can help address the ongoing blood shortage challenge and save lives, especially for patients undergoing surgeries, accidents, or battling chronic illnesses.
Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs a blood transfusion, adding up to about 29,000 units of red blood cells daily, highlighting the constant call for donations. However, this critical supply often faces challenges due to blood shortages, which seriously impact patient care.
Once blood has been donated, quality and safety must be protected. One factor of primary importance is maintaining proper temperature control throughout the cold chain.
Blood components, such as red blood cells, platelets, and plasma, play crucial roles in medical treatments. Red blood cells are essential for carrying oxygen to tissues, platelets help clot blood, and plasma provides vital proteins and antibodies. Ensuring the integrity and efficacy of these blood components is essential for patient well-being.
SpotSee offers innovative solutions to help blood banks optimize their cold chain processes. Its technology allows blood banks to monitor and maintain proper storage temperature to safeguard the quality and safety of blood products. These solutions not only improve patient care but also help optimize cold chain processes.
The blood shortage challenge
The need for blood is dire. A victim of an auto accident can require up to 100 units of blood. Some patients, such as the up-to-100,000 people with Sickle Cell disease, need lifelong blood transfusions.
The American Red Cross has declared an emergency blood shortage as donations have fallen to their lowest level in 20 years, falling by 40%. The reasons for this include:
- Small blood centers struggled to survive as improvements in medical practices led to reduced demand, causing their profit margins to fall. Some were acquired by larger blood centers. The shrinking margins affected everyone, including the American Red Cross, resulting in areas in some states having no donation centers at all.
- There is a shrinking donation pool as older adults, who make up a large percentage of donations, age, and younger donors are not replacing them.
- Red blood cells must be used within 42 days or fewer.
- Platelets have a 5-day shelf life.
The impact on patients
The impact of blood shortages on patients in need of transfusions is significant. Patients undergoing surgeries, experiencing accidents, or battling chronic illnesses rely on blood transfusions to survive and recover. When blood supplies are low, patients may face delays in receiving necessary transfusions, leading to potentially life-threatening situations.
In some countries, people die from lack of blood – in India, more than 12,000 people die each day because blood is not available. In the United States, more than 4.5 million people would die annually without blood transfusions.
The imperative to manage the cold chain for blood banking
Cold chain management in blood banking ensures the safety, quality, and efficacy of blood products by maintaining a specific temperature range throughout the storage and transportation of blood. Any deviation from this temperature range can lead to adverse consequences on blood products.
Temperature fluctuations have serious implications for blood quality. If blood is exposed to temperatures outside the recommended range, it leads to reduced red blood cell viability, impacting blood transfusions’ effectiveness. Temperature fluctuations can also increase the risk of bacterial growth in the blood, threatening the recipient’s health.
Get insight into your cold chain with ColdChain Complete and WarmMark.
SpotSee’s ColdChain Completes is a cost-effective way to monitor temperature-sensitive products. The single-use visual indicator provides accurate, irreversible evidence of a temperature excursion for cold and hot temperaturesbeyond predefined limits.
It is available in the standard ColdChain Complete and ColdChain Complete XS. The ColdChain Complete XS is a cost-effective, single-label format that can be used in smaller spaces.
The standard ColdChain Complete version has a larger footprint for increased visibility and can be easily inserted into a shipping box or placed into insulated containers.
The benefits of using ColdChain Complete include:
- Real-time temperature monitoring ensures that blood products are consistently stored within the specified temperature range.
- Alerts for temperature excursions: Clear visual indicators alert personnel that products have been exposed to temperatures outside the prescribed temperature range, enabling proactive measures to be taken.
- Data-driven insights to improve cold chain processes: ColdChain Complete helps identify potential areas for improvement in the cold chain management process to enhance efficiency and maintain the integrity of blood products.
By utilizing SpotSee’s ColdChain Complete, blood banks can uphold the quality and safety of blood products, ensuring that they remain viable for transfusion and ultimately benefiting the patients in need.
WarmMark
SpotSee’s innovative WarmMark® temperature indicators are designed to ensure blood safety during transport. These time-temperature indicator stickers give insights into your cold chain logistics—you’ll know which blood bags have experienced damage due to high temperatures. The single-use temperature indicator turns red when it reaches the temperature threshold you selected. This enables quick identification of potentially compromised items.
– Easy identification: Blood banks can easily identify if any blood products have been exposed to unsafe temperatures during transport with just one glance at the WarmMark indicators.
When a blood product is exposed to ascending temperatures, WarmMark starts a countdown, with its three individual indicator dots changing color for brief, moderate, and prolonged exposure. If the temperature reaches a predefined temperature threshold, the indication window turns red, clearly indicating a safety hazard.
– Improved safety protocols: Blood banks can enhance their safety protocols by utilizing WarmMark indicators. By promptly addressing any potential temperature deviations, they can ensure the integrity of blood products.
– Cost–effective and irreversible: These field-armable indicators deliver irreversible evidence of exposure to dangerous temperature excursions.
WarmMark is a valuable tool for blood banks to enhance blood safety measures, improve operational efficiency, and ultimately provide patients with the highest quality blood products for transfusions.
Help the cause – donate blood
Donors are the only source of much-needed blood products. You can donate:
- For cancer patients:
- Platelets: certain cancers and cancer treatments prevent patients from producing their own.
- Ideal blood types: A positive, A negative, B positive, O positive, AB positive, and AB negative.
- For trauma patients:
- Power red: O positive, O negative, B negative, A negative.
- AB elite plasma: AB positive, AB negative.
- For Sickle Cell patients:
- Power red: O positive, O negative, B negative, A negative, especially from donors of African descent.
- Ideal blood type: type O.
- For burn patients:
- AB elite plasma: AB positive, AB negative.
- Ideal blood type: AB positive, AB negative.
SpotSee solutions help blood banks maintain a safe cold chain
Blood is precious. With so little being donated, spoilage due to temperature excursions can be devastating.
SpotSee’s ColdChain Complete and WarmMark are essential tools for monitoring the viability of blood products. For more than 50 years, SpotSee has been on the cutting edge of monitoring solutions for cold chain transport and storage. We’re happy to answer any questions – just fill out our simple form, and we’ll be in touch within 24 hours.
