Hospitals vary widely in how they track and improve their blood transfusion practices, according to a recent study published in the journal Transfusion.
Blood transfusions are used to treat many serious conditions, including fetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAITFetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia A rare condition in which a mother’s immune system attacks fetal platelets, leading to dangerously low platelet levels before and/or after birth.). To improve the quality of medical care, it’s important for hospitals to track data on transfusions.
To find out if hospitals are actually collecting information about blood transfusions and using that information to improve, researchers looked at nine hospitals in different parts of the world, including North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. The hospitals were different sizes and treated different kinds of patients.
The study found that every hospital tracked the number of transfusions. And most of the hospitals (7 out of 9) made it a priority to check whether blood transfusions were really needed.
But only 2 out of 9 hospitals kept track of how often they used antifibrinolytic medicines. These are drugs that help stop or slow down bleeding, so patients may not need as much blood.
Only 4 out of 9 hospitals kept track of how well they treated anemia, which is when a person doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells. Treating anemia early can sometimes help patients avoid needing a transfusion at all.
And only 2 out of 9 hospitals kept track of consent, which means making sure patients were told about the risks and agreed to the transfusion before getting it.
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The study also found that each hospital shared the information gathered about its blood transfusion practices with its staff doctors in different ways, and some hospitals did not share this feedback very often.
Hospitals also had very different opinions about whether giving feedback to doctors actually helped. Some hospitals didn’t see any clear change at all. But others felt the feedback made a real difference. At those hospitals, doctors followed the rules better, the hospitals saved money, patients had fewer problems, and more patients got checked for low iron levels.
“The findings underscore many opportunities for improvement and standardization in monitoring and feedback,” the researchers said.
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