National Pathology Accreditation Advisory Council’s Requirements for Transfusion Laboratory Practice guidelines, 4th edition, detail the requirements for storage, transportation, and expiration of various blood products. According to this guidance, most platelet components should be stored from 20-24°C with continuous gentle agitation. To achieve these storage conditions, platelet storage systems typically consist of an incubator that provides a temperature-controlled environment within the required range and an agitator that provides continuous gentle agitation with Helmer’s Pro Line Agitators this agitation is programmable from 40-80 strokes per minute.
To ensure platelet products are continuously agitated, it is important to monitor platelet agitators. To help facilities comply with this guidance, platelet agitators from Helmer Scientific are equipped with motion alarms. In addition, Helmer’s countertop platelet incubators feature the i.C3® Information Center with the AgiTrak™ monitoring system. The Helmer agitator and incubator are connected during installation, which enables AgiTrak™ to monitor agitation.
If agitator motion stops for more than a specified period, an alarm is activated on the incubator’s i.C3® user interface. This helps ensure blood bank staff can hear the alarm, and it creates a record of the alarm in the event log. The event log can be downloaded to provide documentation of the event.
AgiTrak™ also enables users to access agitator settings and status information from the i.C3® touch screen display on their incubator. The agitator status screen provides real-time information on agitation speed and cycle count. In addition, AgiTrak™ provides a graph of the agitator speed and a cycle count history, along with a diagnostics screen that summarises settings and provides a lifetime cycle count. To learn more, watch our video for a demonstration of the AgiTrak™ functionality included in Helmer’s Pro Line platelet incubators.
Helmer Scientific has been serving the blood bank community for more than 40 years. Offering a broad range of platelet storage systems, from compact countertop models to high-capacity floor models. Helmer platelet incubators and agitators are designed for quality and reliable performance.
Helmer Refrigerators and Freezers have been TGA listed since 2010 and routinely used throughout Australia and New Zealand. Please also note, that Helmer Incubators and Agitators comply fully with NPAAC – Requirements for Transfusion Laboratory Practice (4th Ed. 2019).