If you are attending the Annual Meeting of the AABB – the CTTXPO in Denver, Colorado, starting Monday October 14th, we look forward to seeing you. We’ll be on Booth 1654 with our partners Shockwatch, demonstrating our latest product innovation: the Blood Temp 10 indicator label.

We also have a speaker slot at the show, starting at 1.30pm on Monday 14th, where we will be presenting a case study highlighting how temperature indicators not only help identify potentially heat damaged blood but also assist with identifying critical control points within your blood reissue compliance cycle (BRCC).

A study published by the American Journal of Clinical Pathology found that temperature sensitive labels for monitoring blood can help hospitals and blood banks conform to the American Association of Blood Banks and US Food and Drug Administration standards for safe human blood transportation and storage.

While many front-line teams rely on the 30 minute rule for returning blood back into storage, using a temperature sensitive label can increase the safety of the blood life cycle, while reducing wastage.

They found:

“…these devices offer transfusion services an opportunity to develop and validate their own in-house procedures to supplement and, thereby, improve on decisions using the 30-minute rule. For example, if a unit of RBCs were overheated by placement on a hot surface (eg, microwave heater, radiator, or the top of a refrigerator) but returned within 30 minutes to the transfusion service, its potential unsuitability would not be identified by a transfusion service relying only on the 30-minute rule. However, such a potentially unsuitable unit would be likely to be recognized if a temperature-sensitive label had been in place.

Also, procedures can be developed to use temperature-sensitive labels to avoid unnecessary and costly discards of blood components when storage for more than 30 minutes outside a temperature-monitored refrigerator raises questions about suitability.”

The adoption of our simple to use technology as a vital element of the BRCC compliant process will help deliver new levels of accountability across the RBC temperature management teams. Front line teams know the value of clear, simple communication.

Add in the fail-safe component of the Blood Temp 10 and the simplicity of use (including no additional pre-conditioning or expensive associated consumables) and they can see the real value of our technology.

In support of our latest technology we’re also presenting a paper on best practices for keep your blood supply safe in our Learning Lab, entitled Before Good Blood Goes Bad.

According to the WHO around 107 million blood donations are collected globally every year and it is generally accepted that 2% of blood may be discarded. The use of suitable equipment and good management of blood cold chain are important means of minimizing losses and donated blood.

Visitors to our booth 1654 will be able to see the extent of savings achievable through the adoption of the Blood Temp 10 indicator label with our interactive Cost Calculator.

We invite you to join us and the ShockWatch team in Colorado next month and look forward to meeting members of the AABB.