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Inventory Issue

I used to work for a high volume Trauma Center and I had gotten a call from one of the medical residents in regard to a patient bleeding on the floor.

The phone call came about 30 minutes after she placed order for 6 superpacks of irradiated platelets. Now we generally only keep 4 units, unless we are in the middle of an MTP and we up the stock to max of seven.

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And we don’t keep irradiated unless its needed, then we call in the rad tech for irradiation. Anyways, I had ordered from the red cross to meet her needs. Here’s the call:

Resident: I put in this order a while ago, where are the platelets? I need them now

Me: We do not keep them on hand, I put in a STAT order with the red cross. They should be ready soon.

Resident: This is ridiculous. I cannot believe that we can’t meet the needs of our patient. 

Me: I apologize, but platelets have a short shelf life which is why we don’t keep so many on hand. 

TMS Task Manager The Mislabeled Specimen

Resident: Well, this is an emergency. You need to call people in to make more platelets.

Me: ……….

Submitted by:
Jourdan Sainz
Medical Technologist/Scientist
Georgia, USA

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Jen Jen

Bring in the platelet donors 😎🥸🤓🤪