19 August 2015 (Wednesday) - Tan Tops

Chatting with the boss it seems that certain parts of the world use “tan-top” bottles as a safety measure in blood transfusion.
It is standard practice not to issue blood until (at least) two blood groups have been performed on a patient at different times to get round the seemingly eternal problem of the possibility of the wrong patient having been bled.

Apparently in the “tan-top” scheme blood will not be issued until a blood group has been performed on a tan-topped sample bottle; such bottles are *only* available from the blood transfusion department, and are only issued immediately prior to transfusion.

Is it a good idea? In theory yes. In practice… it is *if* there is time to fart around like this. It strikes me that this idea would be rather impractical in any urgent case.
I can’t help but think that it speaks volumes that I an’t find any reference to the scheme on-line…


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