PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 2378012

Perioperative autotransfusion. Avoiding donated risks.

J C Flynn
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Because of the risks associated with donated blood, although slight, intraoperative and postoperative autotransfusion is becoming the wave of the future. "Intraoperative autotransfusion," according to Ken Williamson, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, "is now a medically indicated procedure." Cost effectiveness, once raised as an objection to intraoperative autotransfusion, is no longer considered; disease prevention is paramount. Every OR nurse should become familiar with the operation of the autotransfusion machines and be able to set up such a machine and operate it in an emergency. In our institution, one OR nurse can run two machines in different operating rooms because blood loss into the orthopedic wound is usually slow. Inservice training for nurses is readily available from the manufactures' representative or distributors. All in all, nurses-especially OR nurses-must prepare to be part of the autotransfusion team in the 1990s and beyond.

Explore related subjects

Blood Group IncompatibilityBlood Transfusion, AutologousHumansIntraoperative CareJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

J C Flynn. 1990. Perioperative autotransfusion. Avoiding donated risks.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2378012/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2007

Increasing patient safety and efficiency in transfusion therapy using formal process definitions.

The administration of blood products is a common, resource-intensive, and potentially problem-prone area that may place patients at elevated risk in the clinical setting. Much of the emphasis in transfusion safety has been targeted toward quality control measures in laboratory settings where blood products are prepared for administration as well as in automation of certain laboratory processes. In contrast, the process of transfusing blood in the clinical setting (ie, at the point of care) has essentially remained unchanged over the past several decades. Many of the currently available methods for improving the quality and safety of blood transfusions in the clinical setting rely on informal process descriptions, such as flow charts and medical algorithms, to describe medical processes. These informal descriptions, although useful in presenting an overview of standard processes, can be ambiguous or incomplete. For example, they often describe only the standard process and leave out how to handle possible failures or exceptions. One alternative to these informal descriptions is to use formal process definitions, which can serve as the basis for a variety of analyses because these formal definitions offer precision in the representation of all possible ways that a process can be carried out in both standard and exceptional situations. Formal process definitions have not previously been used to describe and improve medical processes. The use of such formal definitions to prospectively identify potential error and improve the transfusion process has not previously been reported. The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of formally defining processes and to describe how formal definitions of blood transfusion processes can be used to detect and correct transfusion process errors in ways not currently possible using existing quality improvement methods.

Blood Group Incompatibility↗
PubMed2006

Error management of emergency transfusions: a surveillance system to detect safety risks in day to day practice.

Acute hemolysis due to AB0-incompatibility caused by transfusion of red blood cell concentrates (RBCC) to the wrong recipient is one of the major causes of transfusion-related death. As part of our policy to improve quality and safety in emergency transfusion, we have developed a standardized surveillance system for supplying RBCC in emergency situations. This surveillance system involves the implementation of a standardized set of basic data transmitted from the requesting unit to the blood bank by phone and a scoring system to check for compliance with guidelines and errors in daily routines. Communication deficiencies and delayed pretransfusion sampling were the most common errors.

Blood Group Incompatibility↗