title: Implementing a blood utilization program to optimize transfusion practice.
abstract: Blood utilization review programs educate clinicians on guidelines for appropriate transfusion, review local transfusion practice, and provide feedback on transfusion trends. To gather data on transfusion practice, modern blood utilization programs leverage electronic medical records and computerized physician order entry with automated decision support. Data may be collected and feedback may be given in real-time for individual transfusions or retrospectively with aggregated data. Important elements for a successful program include a multidisciplinary group that can champion the effort, adequate documentation and data capture for transfusions, and regular discussions about trends with ordering clinicians. Blood utilization programs are popular because they can lower transfusion risk, improve quality outcomes, and lower costs.
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor of Pathology, Associate Medical Director, Blood Bank, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Savage
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006405:Hematology / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D017713:Platelet Transfusion; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D016730:Program Development; D012306:Risk