GREENSBORO, NC – In an effort to cut down on costly blood product utilization, hospital administrators at Rocky High Hospital have put pressure on their blood bank to “regulate their blood products more efficiently.” The pathology department was quick to answer and immediately sprung into action at the delight of administrators.
Starting next Monday, in order for physicians and nurses to receive a unit of packed red blood cells (pRBCs) for their patient, 8 different forms scattered throughout the hospital will need to be filled out.
Signatures required include the patient’s primary care physician, the on-call pathologist, the charge nurse on the unit, 3 different family members, a custodian, and a ferret. Once all 8 pages have been filled out, 2 blood samples of exactly 10 ml, no more or no less, drawn 15 minutes apart from 2 different sites should be collected and sent for a type and cross.
A patient sticker needs to be placed at exactly 90 degrees on the blood tube with two signatures of famous athletes, time, date, pager number, astrological sign of the patient, and a phone number to the closest Chipotle for the technicians to call with a future delivery order.
Once the paperwork and blood samples have been delivered via carrier pigeon to the castle gates guarding the blood bank, a final order needs to be placed in the computer electronic health record (EHR). The order entry will be located in an obscure location obviously not under the blood product category. This location will rotate every 2 weeks to help minimize unnecessary orders.
If the paperwork, samples, and computer order are all entered correctly, the unit of blood will be released under the provision that if the unit is not used or if the cooler is not returned in 8 hours, the ordering provider will be forced to give up their first-born child to the department for a 24-hour quarantine period as punishment.
