Case Study: University Health Kansas City achieves blood-temperature compliance and protects blood supplies with Zebra Safe-T-Vue 10

Zebra Safe-T-Vue™ Indicators Helping Medical Centers Deliver Patient-First Healthcare

University Health Kansas City is a mid-sized urban safety-net teaching hospital and a busy Level I trauma center committed to providing state-of-the-art care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. With unpredictable, high-acuity demand for red blood cells (about 3,500 units/year and roughly 54 units/month for massive transfusions), the hospital needed reliable protocols to ensure returned blood bags never exceeded the FDA-required 10°C.

The team adopted Zebra Safe-T-Vue 10 irreversible temperature indicators on every RBC unit and implemented checks requiring the indicator to be white before transfusion. Because the indicator irreversibly shows any exceedance of 10°C (often reached within ~15 minutes out of refrigeration) and stays on the unit, staff can quickly identify compromised units—reducing regulatory risk, preventing warmed units from re-entering inventory, and supporting consistent, patient-first care at a comparable cost to other options.

University Health Kansas City