The Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Neder-Over-Heembeek is a leading healthcare provider in Belgium, offering general hospital services as well as a specialist Burns Unit and a Blood bank.

At the Blood bank, collected blood is immediately cooled, labelled and then stored in regulated and digitally monitored refrigerators, awaiting use. Historically, blood that has been requested by the Operating teams is transported in cool boxes to the Operating Theatre where it is warmed up in the event that it is required. If the blood is not required then it is returned to the Blood bank for re-storage.

The Blood bank was concerned that from the moment that blood bags are sent to the Operating Theatre there is no active system in place to monitor the temperature experienced by the bags which are, out of necessity, removed from the cool boxes for labelling, checking, and preparation for use. For this reason they could not guarantee that the cold chain had been maintained at all times.

Timestrip’s distributor in Belgium, Innolabel, were approached to propose ways in which it could help monitor temperature threshold excursions and provide feedback to personnel to help them decide whether a bag has been stored within the protocol guidelines. This collaboration resulted in trials using the industry leading Timestrip Plus™ ascending threshold indicator, which were attached to the blood bags.

In the first trial, bags were sent to the Operating Theatre. In accordance with standard procedures, two bags are attached to the infusion holder, one actively coupled to the IV line, the other as a backup. In cases where the backup bag was not required it was returned to the Blood bank. The Timestrip Plus™ was examined and it revealed that the bag had, in fact, experienced at least 6 hours above the maximum threshold temperature and therefore had to be destroyed. In the absence of the Timestrip Plus™ indicator this bag may have been returned to storage, regardless of its condition.

In another trial, blood bags were returned unused to the Blood bank by the hospital’s Emergency Department. The Timestrip Plus™ was used to confirm that the bag had not experienced a breach of temperature threshold protocol and could therefore be stored for re-use at a later stage.

“Thanks to the Timestrip Plus™ we noticed that there was a limited temperature breach during the labelling of the blood bags.” says France T’Sas, Lieutenant, Doctor in Biomedical Sciences.
“It is also a fact that blood bags warm up more quickly than they cool down, so this was a very important observation in the complete process. Using the Timestrip Plus™ we have adapted and accelerated our process, eliminating the temperature breach. The Timestrip Plus™ labels are very user-friendly, precise and easily readable for everyone without additional explanation.”

Christian Vandenvelde, Head of the Military Department for Blood Transfusion:
“Now that we have conducted in-use tests with the Timestrip Plus™ we will also apply these indicators for other temperature ranges and on blood platelets and plasma, where there is also the need for continual temperature control. The cost of the Timestrip Plus™ is negligible compared to the value of the bag. Also, blood is such a precious product that any method to optimise and secure our processes need to be considered - it saves lives!”