Evaluation of Staining Properties in Simulated Blood Products

Abstract

Studies have shown that high-fidelity medical training simulators are effective at preparing military personnel to care for battlefield injuries (Sotomayor et al, 2013). Hemorrhage is the most common preventable death on the battlefield, requiring trainees to understand and treat significant blood loss (Blackbourne et al, 2010). Thus, it is pertinent that training simulators incorporate the use of blood products to ensure a realistic training environment.


A key difficulty faced when using simulated blood products is that they often stain clothing and uniforms, requiring significant scrubbing to wash the blood out and often leaving permanent discoloration or damage to the clothing. This creates a hesitancy to use blood products in training simulations due to the financial burden of new uniforms or personal clothing need to be purchased after training as well as time washing uniforms. These factors detract from the overall training experience and result in additional personal cleanup time that could be spent on more pertinent mission requirements. This study sought to research a variety of blood products and document their staining characteristics.


A total of seven simulated blood products were tested on white cotton shirt samples (two samples per product). These products differ visually in color, viscosity, and texture. After leaving the products to soak overnight, the samples underwent a hot and cold washing process to determine how temperature impacts the effort of cleaning and the residual color.
The results of this study documented the staining characteristics of a variety of blood products. Hot water was significantly more effective at washing all the samples. Some products were able to be cleaned in less than 2 minutes with either hot or cool water, while others required longer times and more rigorous scrubbing. Unfortunately, two products permanently stained the samples and two additional products performed unequally between the hot and cold washes. Moving forward, the knowledge gained from this research will shape which blood products are incorporated into future medical simulation training events.

Keywords: Simulation, Medical, Blood, Synthetic, Training