Acceptance

This procedure is applicable when the transportation of blood products ordered by the hospital is done by IHcT in the name of and on behalf of RKV, viz. in the case of normal deliveries and in the case of a delivery on Monday morning following a low-pressure order by a hospital with an agreed platelet supply.

 At IHcT's delivery in the hospital, blood products must be received without delay by an employee of the hospital blood bank, with registration in IHcT's web tool cfm IHcT's guidelines so that traceability of the delivery of blood products is ensured.

From the time of receipt, the hospital becomes the owner of the delivered blood derivatives, and is responsible for their continued storage and processing in accordance with applicable legal standards.

Instructions for intake on arrival at the hospital

In order for RKV to achieve the continuous assurance of the validated packaging during transport, immediate return of the exam box incl. all conditioning materials and possibly other accessories (e.g. dividers) is necessary through the IHcT transport with which the blood products are delivered to your hospital.

We therefore ask that the employee of the hospital blood bank receiving the delivery proceed as follows, while the IHcT driver waits to take back the emptied boxes:

• Before opening them, verify that the exam boxes are indeed intended for your hospital
• Using pliers, cut the seal that seals the exam box and with which the document zip bag containing the delivery receipt and IHcT transport document is attached to the exam box.
• Take the documents from the zip bag, You can keep those documents incl. the seallever in your lab; returning them as acknowledgement of receipt is NOT desirable because the receipt of the exam box is automatically registered electronically using IHcT's track & trace application.
• Open the exam box, remove the plastic bag containing the blood products from the exam box:

 ECL:

• Set aside the two overhead NAQI gel packs and, if present, the temperature logger for a moment.
• Remove the plastic bag containing blood products from the exam box.
• Place the bag immediately at the appropriate temperature according to the storage conditions described in product information.

VPVIM:

Because of their brittleness in frozen state, always handle VPVIM units with care, without shocks, the brittleness is a risk of damaging the closed system and causing a leak.

• • Remove the plastic bag containing blood products from the exam box.
  • Place the bag immediately at the appropriate temperature according to the storage conditions described in product information.

Platelets:

• If present, put the temperature logger aside for a moment.
• Remove the plastic bag containing blood products from the exam box.
• Immediately place the bag on a shaker at the appropriate temperature in accordance with the storage conditions described under product information. 

• Fill the exam box with:
  • the emptied document zip bag
  • conditioning materials
  • the temperature logger, if any
• Return the exam boxes immediately to the IHcT driver for return to RKV. You do not need to create an IHcT transport order or complete any documents for this purpose
• If blood products have been delivered that cannot be automatically read into your system, please report this to main depot and provide a copy of the original delivery receipt as well as a photo of the blood product involved via hoofddepot.Mechelen@rodekruis.be / hoofddepot.Gent@rodekruis.be. 
• That way, RKV can immediately make the necessary corrections.

This procedure applies to Ad Hoc Deliveries of blood products where the transport from RKV to the hospital is done in the name of and on behalf of the applicant for the blood products. The issuance of the blood products to the applicant is done, from one of the following locations: RKV's main depot in Mechelen, RKV's main depot in Ghent, or one of RKV's three blood bank labs with sub-depot, at UZBrussels , UZGent or UZLeuven.

When reporting to the pick up location at RKV, the transporter must present the ROOS order numbers to the RKV employee for identification of the exam boxes containing the ordered blood products.

 From the time of receipt at the CRD issuance site, the applicant of the blood products becomes the owner of the blood products and the applicant is responsible for their further transportation, preservation and processing, including ensuring traceability and integrity of the blood products in accordance with applicable legal standards. Upon issuance, the transporter collecting the blood products will be asked to sign off a copy of the delivery receipt for receipt.

Urgency degrees of order:

For more information, see Ad Hoc order.

Packaging of blood products (when transport organized by the applicant for blood products)

RKV issues the blood products in exam boxes of RKV containing the packaged blood products and conditioning materials of RKV. If the hospital/applicant of the blood products wishes to use RKV's validated packaging for transport, the collection must take place within 1 h of the requested availability time at the latest, in order to ensure that RKV's validated packaging is sufficient to guarantee temperature assurance until arrival at the hospital. An additional condition for securing the transport validation status is that the transport takes place under controlled conditions in terms of transport duration (max. 3 h) and ambient temperature (between 15 °C and 25 °C). RKV's validated packaging of the blood products supports the hospital/applicant to take responsibility for the blood products themselves from issue in RKV.

• The exam box is closed upon issuance by means of a seal that also secures the document zip bag containing the original delivery receipt to the exam box.
• RKV requests that exam boxes incl. ALL conditioning materials and all accessories ( e.g. dividers) with the ek. IHcT hospital loop ride visit to your hospital blood bank to be returned to the RKV depot of issue. The procedure for this return can be found at 'In Receipt at Hospital Delivery'.

Remark:

If it concerns an application and delivery of blood products for transfusion in a categorical hospital or outside a hospital, the return of RKV's packaging material cannot be requested via an IHcT hospital loop ride, and the applicant concerned must of course ensure that the exam box including ALL conditioning materials and all accessories (e.g. dividers) are delivered back to RKV's blood bank lab within 3 days. If the conditioning materials are not returned to RKV on time, RKV will charge a compensation of 150 EUR.

If the hospital/applicant does not wish to use RKV's packaging materials for transport of RKV to the hospital or other transfusion site then the hospital/applicant must ensure that the transporter comes to pick up the blood products with transport materials of the hospital/applicant and suitable for validated transport of the blood products under the responsibility of the hospital/applicant (individual prescriber (hospital) physician). During transport, the commissioner for transport shall adequately ensure the integrity and traceability of the blood products until delivery at the hospital blood bank or other transfusion site outside a hospital.