Long term storage of paperwork generated by antibody identification workups

A California blood banker writes that according to the College of American Pathologist's (CAP) Laboratory Accreditation program checklist item TRM.32250 pertaining to record retention for patient records, test results/interpretations must be kept for 10 years. In addition, AABB Standards 6.2B # 7 and #8, also states that test results must be kept for 10 years. The inquiring colleagues wonders if this mean that all the paperwork for an antibody identification workup needs to be stored for ten years, since a typical work up can require a lot of paperwork. For example, a work up might take a couple of panel sheets, the test results need to be recorded on those panel sheets. The inquiring colleague hopes it is sufficient to store the interpretation electronically in the Transfusion Service computer service. However, if storing the interpretation of clinically significant antibody work ups (and not the panel sheets themselves) is not sufficient, does this mean that one needs to store for 10 years the panel sheets with test results for all clinically insignificant antibodies, too? The question is being asked because the amount of paper created by the laboratory is extremely large, long term storage space is becoming very expensive, and consequently, hospitals are beginning to limit the amount of paper that can be sent to long term storage Unfortunately, results for each panel tested are not recorded in the computer systems of many places, so paper panel sheets continue to be generated. What are other institutions doing about this situation?

The following comments have been received in response.

ADDENDA Jan. 12, 2012

1. According to Denise Driscoll, Director, Laboratory Accreditation and Regulatory Affairs for the College of American Pathologists (attribution used with permission), regarding CAP Checklist item, TRM.32250, the requirement is currently to keep the final outcome of transfusion reactions, unexpected antibodies, and special transfusion requirements indefinitely. The worksheets and work products have to be kept for 10 years. The CAP does allow these items to be imaged and an electronic version retained. The laboratory does not have to keep the paper copies. However, "indefinitely" is a very long time. Ms. Driscoll will forward this question to the CAP's Transfusion Medicine Resource Committee (TMRC) and see if that committee still concurs that the requirement should be "indefinitely."

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