Procedures
Establishing good-quality transfusion practice is essential to effective blood transfusion. Clinicians and other staff involved in the provision of blood to a patient should be well trained. In this section, materials are noted for educating all professionals who are involved in clinical transfusion in important safety areas. Staff should be familiar with identification and management of transfusion reactions as well as adverse transfusion events, including transfusion errors and near misses. Staff should be able to lead or participate in investigating incidents, applying human factor principles, identifying systemic factors that result in errors, and taking appropriate, effective preventive actions. These include ensuring that the correct blood unit is being transfused to the correct patient, as well as monitoring for systemic factors that lead to errors and incidents. These must be remedied through changes to practice, policies, or procedures in order to prevent future errors and adverse events of the same nature.
Patient blood management
Patient blood management is based on the premise of providing the right component to the right patient in the right dose at the right time for the right reason. Included in blood management is the concept that sometimes the best transfusion is the one not given. Principles of patient blood management guide transfusing physicians in selecting the best component to treat the patient. This protects the patient as well as the blood supply, since it reduces wastage of precious resources.
Hospital transfusion committee
A peer review committee that addresses hospital transfusion policies and practices and that reviews reported reactions is a key component of recipient haemovigilance. The composition and functioning of the committee should be defined and should have the support of the hospital executive team.
