Through these conversations we try to understand what our customers think about us. Today we travel to the city of Zaragoza, Spain, to speak with Ana Perez Aliaga, Head of the Blood Components Laboratory, Banco de Sangre y Tejidos de Aragon, which is part of the Government of Aragon in Zaragoza.

The Entidad Pública Aragonesa del Banco de Sangre y Tejidos, attached to the Department of Health of the Government of Aragon, is the body in charge of actions related to the donation, processing, storage and distribution of blood components and human tissues, as well as the coordination of the Transfusion Network of Aragon.

1. Could you explain what your activities consist of?

The center collects whole blood from donors and transforms it into blood components that we store and distribute to hospitals for transfusion to patients. The center also processes tissues and breast milk. I am responsible for the laboratory where the blood components are manufactured. The whole blood is divided into red blood cell concentrate, platelet, and plasma components. We process 150 units of whole blood per day.

2. Why is there a need for cold storage in your organization?

Plasma should be frozen as soon as possible. Some plasma is used for transfusion to patients, and some is sent to the Grifols fractionation industry to manufacture drugs. We follow the regulations which apply to plasma for transfusion, and which require plasma freezing reaching a temperature of -30°C in the core of the bag in less than an hour. B Medical Systems refrigeration equipment has a probe that is inserted into a plasma bag, monitors the temperature, and allows us to demonstrate that this temperature is reached in less than an hour.

We also apply GMP standards that say that there must be traceability of the entire manufacturing process. That is why we need the blast freezer to be connected to the blood component management program.

3. Which products did you buy from B Medical Systems?

A contact shock freezer, the CSF61W for the fast freezing of plasma.

4. What are the features that you liked the most? Could you please talk about the performance of the devices?

• The first requirement is that the plasma freezer must reach a temperature of -30°C at the core of the bag in less than one hour and that we could demonstrate this.
• It is a freezer where you can control the cycles very well, I knew that from the older model that we are also working with.
• The new model has a bottom and top plate that can be used independently. For us, it is better that the freezer has 2 plates so that it is not necessary to have a large amount of plasma to start the freezing process with one plate and therefore the plasma spends less time waiting for freezing.
• Another advantage is the shape that the bags acquire with the contact freezing technique: the units are flattened and become smooth and that makes it easier to introduce them in the boxes to send them to the fractioning industry. We make boxes of 60 bags.
• Also, what we like about this equipment is that we can do a very fast defrost cycle. With the other freezers we have worked with this cycle was longer, and because it took such a long time did a defrost on the weekends. Now, we do the defrost cycle at the end of each workday.
• Another peculiarity is that the cooling system works with water. We have the installation ready because we have other equipment that runs on water, which means much less expenditure on electricity supply.

5. How are you using the B Medical Systems’ product and how does it benefit your institution?

We have 3 shifts. The separation of the whole blood units begins in the early morning on the night shift, the freezer is turned on and the freezing of the plasma units begins and ends during the morning around 1 pm. A thawing cycle is performed, and the equipment is turned off until the next day around 5 a.m. when processing begins again.  We receive more or less 150 units of whole blood per day, so we do approximately 6 freezing cycles.

6. Have you found in B Medical Systems a trustworthy partner?

I think yes, they are a reliable partner.

7. How did you learn about B Medical Systems?

I got to know B Medical Systems because I had the previous model of the Dometic brand. Then I looked up who was the distributor of that equipment on the internet.

8. How long have you been a B Medical Systems customer?

We purchased this freezer through a public tender in 2022, but I have worked with the previous model for many years, and it still works perfectly.

9. Are you satisfied with the equipment?

Yes, I am satisfied.

10. Would you recommend B Medical Systems?

Of course I would recommend B Medical Systems because it is a very robust piece of equipment and the company has experience not only with the equipment but also on how to connect it to our blood bank management program to improve the traceability of the process.

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