Manage Inventory, Storage And Expiry

The Blood Inventory is the living stock of the bank — every unit you hold, what it is, whose group it carries, where it lives and how long it has left. Veona lists it FEFO, and that one habit keeps the bank safe and frugal: you always reach for the unit closest to expiry first, so good blood is used before it is lost.

A few terms. FEFO stands for first expiry, first out — the list is ordered by expiry date, earliest at the top, so the unit most at risk of being wasted is the one you see first. A unit’s status tells you where it is in its life: Quarantine (held, not yet cleared), Available (cleared and issuable), Reserved, Issued, Transfused, Discarded or Expired. And the expiry sweep is a one-press housekeeping action that finds units whose date has passed and retires them in one go.

Who / when: the Blood Bank Officer or Lab Scientist running the bank’s stock — continuously, but especially at the start of a shift (check what is near expiry) and whenever a TTI panel clears a donation (release the freed units into storage).

We follow Amaka working the morning inventory.

Work the inventory

1. Blood Bank Officer — open Blood Bank → Inventory. The “Blood Inventory” screen lists units in “FEFO Order · Earliest Expiry First”, with a search box (unit id or segment) and filters for component, ABO, Rh and status.
2. Blood Bank Officer — read the “Expires” column. Anything due within 7 days is flagged with a coloured pill showing the days left; the rest show a plain day count. Work the flagged units first.
3. Blood Bank Officer — to bring a cleared unit into circulation, find a “Quarantine” unit that has passed its infection panel and press “Release”. It moves to “Available” and is ready to be matched.
4. Blood Bank Officer — to relocate stock, press “Move” on a unit, pick the “Storage Location” (each is labelled with its kind — fridge, freezer, agitator), set the “Storage Temp (°C)” if you are recording it, and press “Move”.
5. Blood Bank Officer — to retire a unit that should not be used, press “Discard”, choose a “Reason”, add an optional “Note”, and confirm. The unit moves to “Discarded” and leaves the issuable pool.

Note

The “Release” action only ever appears on a Quarantine unit whose TTI panel has already cleared. A unit still awaiting clearance shows “Awaiting TTI” instead — there is no way to release it from here, because the TTI sign-out is the only thing that can free a unit from Quarantine.

Tip

The filters compose. To check, say, your O-negative red cells, set component to PRBC, ABO to O and Rh to Negative — the FEFO list narrows to just those, still earliest-expiry-first, so you can see at a glance what you hold and what is about to lapse.

Other ways this goes

Release a TTI-cleared Quarantine unit to Available

1. Blood Bank Officer — filter status to “Quarantine” to see everything held.
2. Blood Bank Officer — on a unit that has cleared its infection panel, press “Release”. It flips to “Available” immediately and is now issuable. This is the everyday way freshly-cleared donations join the live shelf.

A Quarantine unit awaiting TTI shows no Release action

1. Blood Bank Officer — a unit whose donation has not yet been cleared shows the label “Awaiting TTI” in place of a button — you cannot release it.
2. Blood Bank Officer — clear the donation’s panel first (the laboratory signs the TTI panel out on Blood Bank → Immunohaematology → TTI Clearance); the unit becomes releasable the moment that signature lands.

Move a unit to a storage location with a target temperature

1. Blood Bank Officer — press “Move” and choose the “Storage Location”. The list shows each location’s kind so you put red cells in a fridge, plasma in a freezer and platelets on an agitator.
2. Blood Bank Officer — record the “Storage Temp (°C)” you read off the unit or appliance, and press “Move”. The unit now carries its location and temperature, which is part of keeping its cold chain demonstrable.

Near-expiry units are flagged on the dashboard

1. Blood Bank Officer — units within 7 days of expiry are flagged both here (the coloured “Expires” pill) and on the bank’s dashboard, so nothing slips quietly past its date.
2. Blood Bank Officer — use these flags to prioritise: release, move or use the earliest-expiry units first, exactly as FEFO intends. Veona can also fan out content-free near-expiry and low-stock alerts to the bench so the team is warned proactively.

Discard an expired, quality or broken-chain unit with a reason

1. Blood Bank Officer — press “Discard” on any unit that should leave the pool. Pick the “Reason” — for example a quality concern, breakage, or a broken cold chain — and add a “Note” explaining it.
2. Blood Bank Officer — confirm. The unit moves to “Discarded” with its reason recorded, so the disposal is fully auditable. Units already Issued or Transfused cannot be discarded from here — they have left the bank.

The expiry sweep retires lapsed units in one go

1. Blood Bank Officer — press “Run Expiry Sweep” at the top of the inventory. Veona finds every past-expiry unit that has not been issued and flips it to “Expired” in a single action, then refreshes the list.
2. Blood Bank Officer — the sweep never touches issued or transfused units (those have left the bank). Run it as routine housekeeping so the live inventory shows only blood that is genuinely usable.

What happens next

A well-kept inventory is the foundation for everything on the recipient side. When a clinician requests blood for a patient, the bank reaches into exactly this FEFO-ordered, group-matched stock — typing and antibody-screening the recipient, then crossmatching a compatible Available unit against them. Keeping Quarantine cleared, cold chains recorded and expiries swept is what makes that next step fast, safe and traceable.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Clear The Donation TTI Panel (Release Gate)
• Related: Clear The Donation TTI Panel (Release Gate) · Report A Transfusion Reaction (Haemovigilance) · Trace A Unit Vein-To-Vein (Lookback)