The Finnish Red Cross Blood Service (FRCBS) is responsible for supplying blood products all over Finland. Hospitals use hundreds of units of red blood cell products, platelet products and plasma products every day. These are used to help patients undergoing surgery, accident victims, those with cancer or blood disorders, women giving birth, preterm infants, and many others. Together with donors and the healthcare professionals who treat the patients, the FRCBS creates the potential for saving lives.
In addition to organizing blood donor sessions and collecting blood, FRCBS carries out the testing of donated blood, the production of blood components and the distribution of blood components to hospitals.
“Every aspect of the health area is strongly connected with quality, safety, double-checking and zero mistakes. Therefore, making changes is never a quick and easy decision and has to be thoroughly considered,“ says Juha-Pekka Klippi, the Equipment Maintenance Manager of FRCBS.
The Finnish Red Cross uses cylinder gases and a liquid nitrogen tank located outside. All around the building they have 40 different gas cylinders. ACCURA® gas management helps our customers to easily follow up and monitor their gas consumption via Internet.
The 6 m3 liquid nitrogen tank located outside and the vacuum-insulated lines connected to it guarantee continuous and automatic liquid nitrogen feed to the cryogenic freezers. The automatic gas ordering service SECCURA® of AGA ensures that there is always a sufficient amount of nitrogen available.
The automated liquid nitrogen freezers of AGA have the temperature of -150 °C or -190 °C which is maintained by circulating liquid nitrogen in the lower part of the device, so that the samples are frozen in the vapor phase and not by immersing them in liquid nitrogen.
Leila Taalikainen, the Health and Safety Representative, adds: “Today our freezers make use of the vapor phase instead of the liquid phase that was used earlier. Now it is almost a year since we replaced our four liquid nitrogen freezers with two gas-phase freezers. We are very satisfied with the new solution. Safety has increased remarkably – there is no open liquid, and gas losses or the danger of leakages can no longer occur.”
After the FRCBS replaced the liquid nitrogen tanks with the automatic filling of vapor-phase nitrogen freezers, they also saved a lot of working hours.
In addition to organizing blood donor sessions and collecting blood, FRCBS carries out the testing of donated blood, the production of blood components and the distribution of blood components to hospitals.
“Every aspect of the health area is strongly connected with quality, safety, double-checking and zero mistakes. Therefore, making changes is never a quick and easy decision and has to be thoroughly considered,“ says Juha-Pekka Klippi, the Equipment Maintenance Manager of FRCBS.
The Finnish Red Cross uses cylinder gases and a liquid nitrogen tank located outside. All around the building they have 40 different gas cylinders. ACCURA® gas management helps our customers to easily follow up and monitor their gas consumption via Internet.
The 6 m3 liquid nitrogen tank located outside and the vacuum-insulated lines connected to it guarantee continuous and automatic liquid nitrogen feed to the cryogenic freezers. The automatic gas ordering service SECCURA® of AGA ensures that there is always a sufficient amount of nitrogen available.
The automated liquid nitrogen freezers of AGA have the temperature of -150 °C or -190 °C which is maintained by circulating liquid nitrogen in the lower part of the device, so that the samples are frozen in the vapor phase and not by immersing them in liquid nitrogen.
Leila Taalikainen, the Health and Safety Representative, adds: “Today our freezers make use of the vapor phase instead of the liquid phase that was used earlier. Now it is almost a year since we replaced our four liquid nitrogen freezers with two gas-phase freezers. We are very satisfied with the new solution. Safety has increased remarkably – there is no open liquid, and gas losses or the danger of leakages can no longer occur.”
After the FRCBS replaced the liquid nitrogen tanks with the automatic filling of vapor-phase nitrogen freezers, they also saved a lot of working hours.
Formerly, two persons were continuously taking care of the manual filling of the liquid nitrogen tank which took two hours a week.
All pipe lines and equipment of gaseous and liquid gases are operated under the maintenance contract of AGA.
The automatic annual maintenance service of AGA makes sure that our customers could rely on the functionality of their systems. With our knowledge of and experience with gases, and the applicable laws and regulations, we can help our customers to fulfill the requirements of the authorities concerning inspections and documentation.
For more information, please contact AGA Cryo Preservation Project Manager Minna Matrone (phone +358 10 242 0252).