In the blood bank we run with inventory software. Keeps track of what's on the shelf and when it outdates so it can be removed.

The latest update to our software was supposed to be Y2K compliant, that is until the alert came today.

"Blood products that cross the Feb 29 date will be given a 366 day outdate."

What followed was a workaround. Not a fix, not a patch, just a manual workaround. (To those of you not in the know, most blood and blood products run with outdates in the 10-45 day range.)

Now I know that we are small enough to do all of it manually but I forsee many similar glitches in places that no one expects. I can see how small probems like this could easily be overlooked at a larger place and bad outdated product could be administered.

Just another small report from the trenches.

-- LM (latemarch@usa.net), November 13, 1999

Answers

I heard on the Radio in Atlanta yesterday that the REd Cross was having to cancel some Blood drives. Said they didn't have enough people to man the drives, so they were only going to be conducting High Volume drives for the forseeable future.

This is very surprising because not too long ago there was a serious shortage!

I'll call the local Red Cross to get more detail.......Connected??

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), November 18, 1999.