Military Hospitals
Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Belgium
Monitor the temperature of blood bags to determine if they can be returned to storage.
Contact us for your solution“By applying freeze indicator and a Timestrip PLUS label, we can demonstrate that we now have continuous temperature monitoring of our blood products. This also means that we have more certainty on the storage conditions in order to take back blood products. Moreover, any human error can be discovered and critical mistakes avoided.”
Dr. Christian Vandenvelde, Head of the Military Department for Blood Transfusion
Company Profile
The Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Neder-Over-Heembeek is a leading healthcare provider in Belgium, offering general hospital services as well as a specialist Burns Unit and a Blood bank.
Monitoring of Blood Transportation in hospitals
Timestrip Blood temperature solutions
The Blood bank was concerned that from the moment that blood bags are sent to the Operating Theatre there is no active system in place to monitor the temperature experienced by the bags which are, out of necessity, removed from the cool boxes for labelling, checking, and preparation for use. For this reason they could not guarantee that the cold chain had been maintained at all times.
Timestrip’s distributor in Belgium, Innolabel, were approached to propose ways in which it could help monitor temperature threshold excursions and provide feedback to personnel to help them decide whether a bag
has been stored within the protocol guidelines. This collaboration resulted in trials using the industry leading Timestrip temperature ascending threshold indicator, which were attached to the blood bags.
Timestrip’s distributor in Belgium, Innolabel, were approached to propose ways in which it could help monitor temperature threshold excursions and provide feedback to personnel to help them decide whether a bag
has been stored within the protocol guidelines. This collaboration resulted in trials using the industry leading Timestrip temperature ascending threshold indicator, which were attached to the blood bags.
Benefits of Timestrip Blood Temp in military hospital blood banks
In the first trial, bags were sent to the Operating Theatre. In accordance with standard procedures, two bags are attached to the infusion holder, one actively coupled to the IV line, the other as a backup. In cases where the backup bag was not required it was returned to the Blood bank. The Timestrip indicator was examined and it revealed that the bag had, in fact, experienced at least 6 hours above the maximum threshold temperature and therefore had to be destroyed.
In the absence of the Timestrip indicator this bag may have been returned to storage, regardless of its condition. In another trial, blood bags were returned unused to the Blood bank by the hospital’s Emergency Department. The Timestrip indicator was used to confirm that the bag had not experienced a breach of temperature threshold protocoland could therefore be stored for re-use at a later stage.
In the absence of the Timestrip indicator this bag may have been returned to storage, regardless of its condition. In another trial, blood bags were returned unused to the Blood bank by the hospital’s Emergency Department. The Timestrip indicator was used to confirm that the bag had not experienced a breach of temperature threshold protocoland could therefore be stored for re-use at a later stage.