Behind the scenes at the Blood Bank

[Music playing]

[Text on screen: Scott Scrape, MD
Medical Director of Transfusion Medicine
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center]

Scott Scrape, MD: Hi, my name is Scott Scrape, and I'm the medical director of transfusion medicine here at Ohio State. We are here on the third floor of Doan Hall at the blood bank, and I am going to give you a tour of the blood bank today. 

[Text on screen: Issuing Window]

First area of the blood bank that we see here is the issuing window where we pass blood products out to patients, representatives who come down from the floor, and then from here, they'll take the blood products back up to the patients.

[Text on screen: Refrigerator
Stores around 800 units of red blood cells.
Kept between 1 degree and 6 degrees Celsius (33.8 and 42.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lasts for 42 days.]

This is the refrigerator where we keep our red blood cells and other products here at Ohio State. We keep about 800 units at any given time in here. They're always kept between one degree and six degrees Celsius. A typical unit that we have, a unit of red blood cells can stay in here for about 42 days before it goes bad. 

[Text on screen: Tube Station]

This is our tube station where we tube blood products to the floor.

[Text on screen: Types and Screens Area]

These are our automated machines that do our types and screens for us. 

[Text on screen: Platelet Agitator]

This machine here is our platelet agitator. It's a very expensive piece of equipment, which just kind of shakes gently. Platelets have to be kept with what's called gentle agitation and room temperature, and so this is where we keep our platelets. 

[Text on screen: Plasma Area
Can stay frozen up to a year.
Takes 25 minutes to thaw.]

This is our plasma area where we keep our stored plasma. This plasma comes in frozen where we can keep it frozen for a year. Once we need it thawed, we put it in one of these thawers and takes about 25 minutes for it to thaw. Then we issue it out to the floor.

[Text on screen: Crossmatching Area]

Back here is the area where we are crossmatching blood products for patients up on the floor. It's always a very, very busy area with multiple stations taking care of multiple patients at the same time. 

[Text on screen: Intake Area
6,000 products per month.]

This is our intake area where every product that comes in here, we have to confirm the ABO status of it. We have to confirm everything here, and this is where we do that. We issue about 6,000 products a month. This area is always busy, so we're always taking in new product to be able to fill that refrigerator back up. That is the tour of the blood bank.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center]

[Music fades]