title: How do we utilize a transfusion safety officer?
abstract: The hospital transfusion safety officer (TSO) serves an important role in improving transfusion safety outside of the laboratory through education, active surveillance of the transfusion process (patient identification, blood administration, appropriate ordering practices, transfusion reactions, incidents, and near misses), patient blood management (blood utilization review, minimization of perioperative blood loss, documentation review), quality improvement (transfusion guidelines development, transfusion committee or peer review participation, massive transfusion protocols), and research. We provide a description of how we utilize our hospital-based TSO to improve transfusion safety and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and maintenance of certification at our institution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology.|Department of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire.
authors.forename: Nancy M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Dunbar
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology.|Department of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire.
authors.forename: Zbigniew M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Szczepiorkowski
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D061214:Patient Safety / Q000592:standards*; D065227:Transfusion Reaction