Blood type patches?

[Hmac]

I'm curious. I see blood type patches for attachment to MOLLE gear, hats shirts, etc. all over the range and in LEO training courses, and I dont understand the purpose of the patches.

In the military, would they really transfuse type-specific blood entirely based on a Velcro patch on the back of somebody's gear or clothing? That would never happen in a civilian medical setting, including law enforcement, I'm surprised the military would go for it.

[tampam4]

To be rhetorical, who would wear a patch stating a blood type other than the wearers?

[peepee]

I'm curious. I see blood type patches for attachment to MOLLE gear, hats shirts, etc. all over the range and in LEO training courses, and I dont understand the purpose of the patches.

In the military, would they really transfuse type-specific blood entirely based on a Velcro patch on the back of somebody's gear or clothing? That would never happen in a civilian medical setting, including law enforcement, I'm surprised the military would go for it.

Uhhhhhh..... yes. CONUS, you're 60 min from bright lights and cold steal... not so much in combat.

[Iraqgunz]

I was told by the medics that even with a dog tag that has your blood type they would still follow certain protocols. I don't remember the whole story.

Also made me wonder about why we had the patches or stuff marked on certain items.

[CENTCOM_Survivor]

You would be better off stating NKA or if you have allergies than your blood type.

[TehLlama]

You would be better off stating NKA or if you have allergies than your blood type.

This is true, but with the availability of IR glint patches that accomplish all tasks (Bloot Type/NKDA//NoPEN//Etc.), I'm not sure why that isn't the standard.

[Weaver]

Blood type patches are a waste of money - as well as being against Army uniform regulations.

Nobody will ever trust those patches - as someone noted above, even ID tags aren't trusted. EVERYONE gets typed/matched before receiving products - if it's an emergency, they will get O-NEG until their blood is typed, but nobody will ever trust tags (which run about 10% error) or patches.

Even NKDA and NoPEN are silly - those with drug allergies should (and are required to) wear red Allergy tags. If you don't have one, you are assumed to have NKDA - so why should anyone advertise it?

[MIKE G]

They will not be used to provide "typed" blood to a patient. Period.

A statistic has been floating around the community for years that even blood typing on dog tags were wrong somewhere in the level of 10%. As for blood tags, the tag could be wrong, the person wearing the gear may not be the owner of the tag/gear, etc. Way too many variables to trust a velcro tag to be correct.

Couple that with the fact that blood reactions are a very serious issue and not easy to manage in resource limited enviros like forward facilities AND the fact that type and crossing is easy to do in the field there is no reason not to type and cross immediately prior to a transfusion. At a minimum, typing should be done on the donor and recipient to confirm a theoretical match but the patient should still be monitored for a reaction.

Allergies are one thing, blood typing to me is not worth writing on your gear, granted I have a vest somewhere from years ago that has my blood type on it.

ETA: My earlier comments are based on in-facility treatment, there is a SOF protocol for in field transfusion with pre-mission confirmed typing. Anyone that I would consider a field donor/recipient without testing immediately prior to infusion would be typed using an Eldon card and put on a cheat sheet during pre-deployment prep.

Anytime I have carried a field transfusion kit Eldon cards have been part of the kit.

[Hmac]

Ok. Indeed, pointless fashion accessory in the civilian world since no ER doc nor trauma surgeon is going to pay the slightest attention to any blood type information that doesn't come from their own lab. I can see the rationale in the narrow context of the special forces community, however.

[CAVDOC]

having done two tours as a Military medical officer, it seems to be forgotten that the use of blood transfusions for military wounds is the exception rather than the rule. most wounded simply do not need blood and my aid station (not a hospital or fast team station) would simply stock a few units of o neg just in case. if you really need blood fast they will just grad o neg and give it -worrying about a type and cross later.