Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. From emergency surgeries to chronic conditions like Sickle Cell Anemia, the need is constant and often unpredictable. Safe transfusions would not be possible without readily available blood donations. These donations must be properly stored and carefully monitored across blood bank operations.
While this may seem straightforward, studies indicate that human error and improper storage are the leading causes of blood wastage today.
This is because blood banks face a constant balancing act. They must maintain enough supply for emergencies, keep inventory safe, and comply with strict temperature requirements all at once.
Through work with a wide range of customers, we’ve identified seven common and crucial areas where temperature monitoring can make a meaningful impact on blood preservation.
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Did You Know? While more than 6 million Americans donate blood each year, demand remains high due to the short shelf life of blood and blood products. Maintaining at least a seven-day supply is critical—making proper temperature control essential to preserving blood product inventory. |
Blood products move through several departments before reaching a patient. With each handoff and change of environment, the products are at risk of temperature deviation, making consistent temperature control across the following touchpoints essential for product safety and effectiveness.
Once blood is collected, it must be stabilized quickly. Units are typically placed on ice or moved into controlled storage immediately, but delays, busy collection sites, or temporary holding areas can introduce risk. Environmental fluctuations —especially temperature— are the most common and measurable threats during this stage.
Monitoring best practices:
Early visibility here helps prevent small oversights from becoming irreversible losses.
Blood products are frequently transported between collection sites, labs, processing facilities, and hospitals. AABB standards require whole blood and red blood cells to remain between 1°C and 6°C during transportation.
During loading, unloading, and temporary storage holding, blood products are exposed to fluctuating conditions that are difficult to detect without a wireless monitoring solution.
Monitoring best practices:
Without this visibility, excursions could go undetected, putting patients at risk of receiving blood that is no longer safe to use.
While blood units are screened, corresponding samples move through testing labs under strict protocols. If a sample fails, the associated unit is discarded. If it passes, it proceeds with processing.
Even though testing labs may not store final products, environmental conditions still matter.
Monitoring best practices:
These controls help maintain chain-of-custody confidence and audit readiness.
Processing turns one donation into three life-saving components. Each component – red blood cells, platelets, and plasma – has unique storage requirements and risks.
Red Blood Cells
Red blood cells can be refrigerated for up to 42 days. However, they’re extremely sensitive to temperature deviations in both directions.
Monitoring systems should:
Platelets
For decades, it’s been best practice to store blood platelets at room temperature inside of an incubator with continuous agitation. In 2020, the FDA approved storing platelets in refrigerators to extend their usability from 5 days to 2 weeks.
Major regulatory changes like this can change at any time. A monitoring system should be flexible enough to accommodate these shifts.
Monitoring best practices:
Plasma & Rare Blood Types
Plasma is typically stored in medical freezers for up to one year, though ultra-low temperature units can extend product shelf life for several years. For long-term storage, rare blood types and specialized plasma samples may be cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen, where they can remain viable for over a decade.
A flexible monitoring system will have the safeguards necessary to protect frozen inventory accordingly.
Monitoring best practices:
Blood centers and distribution facilities manage large volumes of inventory under constant operational pressure. In these environments, manual checks are easily missed. Automation ensures no unit is overlooked in busy, high-volume settings.
Monitoring best practices:
Before transfusion, blood must be handled carefully, especially during rapid or massive transfusions, where warming is required to prevent patient hypothermia.
Monitoring best practices:
Failures at this stage directly affect patient safety, making visibility critical.
Temperature requirements exist within an unforgiving window. Too warm, and blood degrades. Too cold, and ice crystals permanently damage cells.
Missing even one data point can result in:
Manual monitoring increases the risk of human error, missed excursions, and incomplete documentation, especially in today’s understaffed healthcare environments.
Monitoring best practices:
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Relying on staff to manually record temperatures introduces unnecessary risk. Excursions can occur between checks, failing equipment may go unnoticed, and documentation gaps can jeopardize compliance.
Modern automated monitoring systems eliminate these risks by:
To reduce waste and protect patients, confirm your monitoring strategy covers:
Blood banks can’t control demand, but they can control risk.
By focusing monitoring efforts on the most vulnerable points in storage, transport, and handling, facilities can reduce waste, strengthen compliance, and protect patient outcomes.
And the good news? All of this can be automated.
Facilities that automate their temperature monitoring and compliance tasks report less blood waste, smoother audits, and reduced labor costs than those that rely on manual tracking methods alone.
An advanced environmental monitoring system will provide all the features crucial for fully optimized blood bank operations:
Did you spot any gaps in your monitoring strategy? We can help assess your coverage and identify opportunities to bridge those gaps.
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