Move Units Between Network Facilities

No single fridge holds everything. One hospital runs low on O-negative while the sister site across town has a surplus; a rare group is needed urgently and only the network has it. Network transfers let facilities in the same group share blood, formally and traceably — you request a matched fill from another facility, the two sides walk it through a clear sequence of statuses, and the unit’s full vein-to-vein history travels with it so nothing about its lineage is lost in the move.

Two terms worth setting out. A group here is your organisation’s network of facilities (the network edition) — the sister sites you are permitted to share blood with. A group-matched fill is a request for a quantity of a component in a compatible blood group, rather than for one named bag — you say “two units of O-negative red cells” and the source facility picks suitable units to send.

Who / when: a Blood Bank Officer or Lab Scientist on either side of the move — the requesting facility raising the need, and the source facility deciding and dispatching — whenever stock has to cross facilities. You need the manage transfers permission to request, approve or advance a transfer.

We will follow Bola, a blood bank officer whose fridge is below par on O-negative red cells with a case coming up.

Request a fill and walk it home

1. Blood Bank Officer — open Blood Bank → Network Transfers (the “Network Transfers” console, “Cross-facility blood sharing within your group”). The “Transfer Requests” panel lists every transfer you are part of, with its reference, the source facility, the component, group, units, urgency and a status pill. Press “Request Transfer” at the top right.

2. Blood Bank Officer — the “Request Network Transfer” dialog opens. In “Source Facility Id”, name the group facility you want the blood from — the sister site with the stock. Bola enters the facility that holds the O-negative surplus.

3. Blood Bank Officer — set the fill you need: choose the “Component” (red cells, plasma, platelets, cryoprecipitate), the number of “Units”, and — for a group-matched fill — the “ABO Group” and “Rh Factor” (leave these as Any if a compatible group will do). Bola picks PRBC, 2 units, group O, Rh Negative.

Note

A group-matched fill asks for a quantity in a group, not a specific bag. That is what makes it practical across facilities: the source site fulfils it from whatever suitable units it holds, rather than you having to know their exact inventory. Leaving the group as Any widens what they can send.

4. Blood Bank Officer — set the “Urgency” (Routine, Urgent, Emergency or Massive) so the source facility knows how fast to move, add an optional “Reason”, and press “Request”. The transfer appears in the panel stamped Requested — the ball is now in the source facility’s court.

5. Blood Bank Officer (source facility) — the team at the supplying site sees the request in their own Blood Bank → Network Transfers and decides. On a Requested transfer they have the “Approved”, “Rejected” and “Cancelled” actions. Approving it accepts the request and commits to sending the units; the status moves to Approved.

6. Blood Bank Officer (source facility) — when the blood physically leaves, advance the Approved transfer to “In Transit”. The unit is now travelling between facilities, and its move is recorded.

7. Blood Bank Officer (requesting facility) — when the cold box arrives and is checked in, advance the In Transit transfer to “Received”. The transfer is complete, the unit has moved into your facility’s care, and — crucially — its full traceability has come with it: the donor, donation and history are intact on the other side of the move.

Tip

The status sequence is deliberate and one-directional through the happy path: Requested → Approved → In Transit → Received. Each side advances the steps it owns — the source approves and dispatches, the receiver confirms arrival — so the pill always tells both facilities exactly where the blood is right now.

Other ways this goes

Approving or rejecting an incoming request

1. Blood Bank Officer (source facility) — an incoming request lands as Requested in your Blood Bank → Network Transfers.
2. Blood Bank Officer (source facility) — if you can fill it, press “Approved” and the transfer moves to Approved, ready to dispatch. If you cannot — you are short yourself, or the request is not appropriate — press “Rejected”. A rejected transfer is closed; the requesting facility sees the outcome and can look elsewhere in the group.

Advancing In Transit, then Received

The two movement steps are where the blood actually travels. The source facility advances Approved → In Transit when the units leave the building; the receiving facility advances In Transit → Received when they arrive and are checked in. Splitting the two means the transfer is never ambiguously “somewhere on the road” — it is either still at the source (Approved), genuinely moving (In Transit), or safely arrived (Received), and the unit’s traceability is preserved across each step.

Cancelling a transfer while it is still open

Plans change. While a transfer is still open — Requested, Approved or In Transit — either side can press “Cancelled” to stop it: the case resolves another way, the units are no longer free, or the route falls through. The transfer closes as Cancelled and no blood moves under it. A transfer that has already reached Received (or was Rejected) is finished and cannot be cancelled — there are no further actions on a closed transfer.

An urgent cross-facility top-up for a below-par group

1. Blood Bank Officer — your dashboard flags a group as Below Par (see Configure Storage Locations And Par Levels for how par levels are set) and a case is imminent.
2. Blood Bank Officer — raise the transfer with “Urgency” set to Urgent (or Emergency), so the source facility treats it accordingly and prioritises the dispatch.
3. Blood Bank Officer — walk it through the same Approved → In Transit → Received sequence. The urgency does not skip steps; it signals to the other side how fast to move through them, while keeping the same traceable trail.

What happens next

A received transfer puts the units into your facility’s inventory with their lineage intact, ready to be group-matched, crossmatched and issued exactly like any locally collected unit — and a below-par group is back above its line. Because the move is recorded end to end and the unit’s vein-to-vein history follows it, a later investigation can still trace that blood all the way back to its donor, even though it was given at a different facility from the one that collected it. The network behaves as one shared, fully traceable supply.

Follow the trail

• Related: Manage Inventory, Storage And Expiry · Raise A Transfusion Request