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Hi Brian,
LifeFlight in Pennsylvania carries two each of O-neg and O-pos on every
flight, whether trauma, cardiac, or PR... doesn't matter; if the nurses are in
the aircraft, so is the blood. (The O-neg goes to women of child-bearing
age; others get the O-pos.) We have so many back-to-back flights, or
instances when we're diverted from a cardiac to a scene, or the patient is
sicker than as originally billed, that it makes sense just to have it on board
every time we fly.
We have aircraft at several hospitals as well as at airports, and at each
of our five bases, we maintain blood refrigerators which are approved by our
institution's blood bank, and we must follow strict guidelines for checking the
temps, alarms etc. When blood is one week from expiration, we return it to
our institution's blood bank when we fly in and exchange it for fresh.
Hope this helps..
Cece Peterson, RN, CEN, CFRN
LifeFlight, Pittsburgh, PA
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