title: Blood transfusion prescribing in the ACT: an insight into clinical decision making.
abstract: Medical practitioners with varying levels of experience may make medical decisions in hospitals. Little is known about who is responsible for these decisions. We determined transfusion appropriateness during an audit of blood transfusion, before developing practice improvement strategies, by concurrent medical record review. The prescriber could be determined in 78% of transfusion episodes: most were specialist staff. Registrars and after-hours staff prescribed significantly fewer inappropriate transfusions. The findings have significant implications in understanding clinical decision making in the hospital setting and for the targeting of quality improvement strategies in particular.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Haematology and Laboratory, Waikato District Health Board, Pembroke Street, Hamilton, New Zealand. Crispinp@waikatodhb.govt.nz
authors.forename: Philip J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Crispin
authors.forename: Bethany J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Crowe
authors.forename: Anne M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: McDonald
mesh_terms: D020958:Australian Capital Territory; D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003657:Decision Making; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D009517:New South Wales; D019564:Unnecessary Procedures