Management of a Hospital Transfusion Service During a Nationwide Blood Product Shortage

• Published in: Archives of pathology & laboratory medicine (1976) Vol. 142; no. 7; pp. 779 - 781
• Main Authors: O'Brien, Kerry L, Mohammed, Monique, Uhl, Lynne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States College of American Pathologists 01.07.2018
• Subjects: Algorithms; Blood & organ donations; Blood banks; Blood Banks - organization & administration; Blood Banks - supply & distribution; Blood donation; Blood Donors - supply & distribution; Blood platelets; Blood products; Blood Transfusion; Drug stores; Hospital services; Hospitals; Humans; Inventory; Inventory management; Patients; Pharmacists; Quality; Safety and security measures; Shortages; Suppliers; Supply and demand; Task forces; United States > US; Massachusetts
• ISSN: 0003-9985; 1543-2165; 1543-2165
• DOI: 10.5858/arpa.2017-0483-LE

To the Editor.-On June 21, 2016, our blood supplier informed the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston, Massachusetts) blood bank (and all customers) about a blood product shortage affecting blood centers nationwide. With the assistance of members of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center quality services division and the transfusion committee, the transfusion service created a blood shortage management algorithm (Figure) and delineated membership of the BSTF (Table). The decision by the transfusion service medical director to trigger the BSTF takes into account (1) whether the product is essential for patient care, (2) if long-term depletion is truly forecast, (3) if multiple services and multiple users are predicted to be affected, (4) if there is no therapeutic alternative (eg, fibrinogen concentrate could be considered a therapeutic alternative to cryoprecipitate; we do not routinely stock fibrinogen concentrate, but have the ability to bring it into inventory if required), and (5) if there is a marked transfusion medicine concern for patient safety. Kerry L. O'Brien, MD; Monique Mohammed, MS(ASCP), SBB; Lynne Uhl, MD Blood Bank, Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts Blood Shortage Task Force Membership Medical director of transfusion medicine Senior vice president for health care quality Director of regulatory affairs Hospital legal representative Physician staff representative Senior vice president for ambulatory practice Senior vice president for inpatient services Ethics staff representative Social work representative Referral management representative Pharmacy representative Corporate affairs/communications representative Accepted for publication January 30, 2018.