title: Blood bank on-call physician's experiences at a large university medical center.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The responsibilities of the blood bank on-call physician (blood bank physician from here on) encompass many aspects of transfusion medicine and physician education. This physician is available 24 hours a day to address any issues concerning the collection and transfusion of blood and blood components. The purpose of this study was to identify and categorize the issues that may confront a blood bank physician.
  
  
  METHODS
  Each call received over a 4-month period was logged and the resolution documented. The calls were grouped into five categories: donor issues, therapeutic procedure issues, patient issues, physician education issues, and requests for blood components not meeting previously defined transfusion guidelines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The blood bank physician received 224 calls during the study period. To resolve each issue, an additional 1 to 14 telephone calls were needed to gather further information. Number of calls by category were donor issues, 20 (8.9%); therapeutic procedure issues, 9 (4.0%); patient issues, 4 (1.8%); physician education issues, 33 (14.7%); and requests for blood components not meeting previously defined transfusion guidelines, 158 (70.6%). Requests for blood components were denied in 39.8 percent of the cases not meeting guidelines. Other forms of therapy were warranted in 20.9 percent of the cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study revealed that 85.3 percent of the calls referred to the blood bank physician related to physician education and the appropriateness of blood component orders. These results emphasize the need for ongoing education of medical staff in transfusion medicine issues.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77555-0609, USA. bbryant@utmb.edu
authors.forename: Barbara J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.forename: Jack B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Alperin
authors.forename: Alexander J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Indrikovs
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D001771:Blood Banks; D001782:Blood Donors; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D018962:Phlebotomy; D010820:Physicians