title: The transfusion service is an integral and important component of the hospital and should not be outsourced.
abstract: Hospitals are under increased pressure to decrease operating costs. Hospital-based laboratories, blood banks (transfusion services), increasingly face the potential of being outsourced as hospitals try to survive the current waves of managed care. A number of complicated and unique services are provided by the hospital-based transfusion service and physician. Clinical consultation, complicated immunohematological procedures, apheresis, participation in a complex array of patient-care services, clinical research, ever increasing regulatory issues, and quality assurance activities are only a few of the challenges in today's transfusion medicine environment. This paper will focus on the hospital-based transfusion service, and the transfusion medicine physician, and present arguments as to why this service should remain close to the patient's bedside and not be outsourced.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pathology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, OH 44195, USA.
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Domen
mesh_terms: D000720:Ancillary Services, Hospital; D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000191:economics*; D003284:Contract Services; D003363:Cost Control