The
Yale-New Haven Hospital Blood Bank
The
Yale-New Haven Hospital Blood Bank is a full service laboratory serving
a premier tertierary care teaching hospital. The mission of the Yale-New
Haven Hospital blood bank is three fold. Firstly, it provides
experienced high quality transfusion medicine care to the patients
at Yale-New Haven Hospital and several outpatient facilities. Secondly,
it is integrated with the Yale
University School of Medicine, and is a training ground for medical
students, residents, fellows and medical technologists. Thirdly, the
blood bank conducts a variety of clinical and basic science research
and is proud to house the newly established Frisbee Laboratory for
Hematopoetic Graft Engineering in conjunction with the Yale
Cancer Center.
The Yale-New Haven Hospital Blood Bank provides blood component and
performs laboratory testing for a 900 bed tertiary care hospital with
level 1 trauma responsisbility. The surgical services perform over
900 open heart surgeries in addition to kidney, liver, heart/lung
and pancreas transplants. The quality of a blood bank can be no better
than the quality of its staff. We are very proud of our 3 chief/supervisor
technologists having over 50 years of combined experience.
 The Blood
Bank performs:
ABO Blood Rh Typing-This lab is currently using the
Gel system
to perform ABO typing and screening for unexpected antibodies on over36,000
samples per year. With crossmatching also using Gel technology for
approximately 29,000 red cell units per year. IATs and DATs more commonly
called "Coombs" testing. Samples of anticoagulated whole blood submitted
for coombs testing will be screened with a polyspecific antiglobulin
test. If the sample is positive we then test with monoclonal reagents
anti- IgG and anti- C3d. If the IgG is positive and there is evidence
of accelerated red cell destruction warm auto immune hemolytic anemia
may be present. If the C3d alone is postive then the presence of a
warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia is unlikely. The C3d may indicate
the presence of an IgM but is not conclusive. We do not perform IgM
or IgA DATs we can arrange testing if requested. Indirect antiglobulin
testing is performed on request and is equivalent to an Antibody Screening
Test that is usually ordered as a type and screen.
The identification of unexpected anti bodies detected by the screening
test is routinely performed in the event that the patient requires
transfusion. Antibodies of this sort are generally easily identified
using a panel of reagent red cells whose antigen expression is known.
Several other confirmatory procedures may be employed if the panel
workup is inconclusive.
The blood bank routinely performs blood typing and a DAT on umbilical
cord blood for every child born in the hospital about 5,000. All Rh
negative mother's blood is tested for the presence of fetal blood
by the erythrocyte rosette test. If this test is positive the amount
of feto-maternal hemorrhage is quantified using the Kliehauer Betke
method.
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