Cell Saver Troubleshooting

• Grinding Sound From Inside the Machine
  Turn it off, and it turn it back on. No seriously. Turn the cell saver off, wait about 10 seconds, and turn it back on. It's worked before, and it'll probably work for you.
• Blood Clots In The Reservoir
  Reason: Heavy blood loss not matched with an adequate flow of an anticoagulant is typically what leads to clotting inside of the reservoir.
  
  Fix: Clamp off the reservoir at the bottom. Ask the surgical team when a good time is to temporarily turn off the suction. Move the line from the bottom of the reservoir over to the new reservoir, followed by the suction line in the back and front. Remove the old reservoir from the ring stand, and replace it with the new one.
  
  Preventative: Increasing your ACD rate. Also, adding 10,000 units of heparin to your ACD for a case you suspect will have heavy blood loss. 
• Clot in the Bowl
  Get a new bowl from a new cell saver kit. The tubing on each side where it enters and exits can be removed easily. Clamp off both sides of the same tubing on the bowl that's clotted off. Replace the bowl with the empty one inside the centrifuge, and apply the tubing onto the bowl. 
• Cell Saver Sounds Like a Plane Taking off
  First, this is purely a problem of annoyance. The cell saver will still work.
  At the front of the lid there are two small magnets that are meant to lock the lid. These magnets don't always align. Simply adjusting the lid slightly can fix this problem. If the noise persists then you lay a bag (or 2) of saline on top of the lid to decrease the sound.