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Triage tool for the rationing of blood for massively bleeding patients during a severe national blood shortage: guidance from the National Blood Transfusion Committee
Author(s) -
Doughty Heidi,
Green Laura,
Callum Jeannie,
Murphy Michael F.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/bjh.16736
Subject(s) - economic shortage , triage , rationing , medicine , blood transfusion , pandemic , intensive care medicine , medical emergency , transfusion medicine , blood supply , business , health care , covid-19 , emergency medicine , surgery , economics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , linguistics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economic growth
Summary The emerging COVID‐19 pandemic has overwhelmed healthcare resources worldwide, and for transfusion services this could potentially result in rapid imbalance between supply and demand due to a severe shortage of blood donors. This may result in insufficient blood components to meet every patient's needs resulting in difficult decisions about which patients with major bleeding do and do not receive active transfusion support. This document, which was prepared on behalf of the National Blood Transfusion Committee in England, provides a framework and triage tool to guide the allocation of blood for patients with massive haemorrhage during severe blood shortage. Its goal is to provide blood transfusions in an ethical, fair, and transparent way to ensure that the greatest number of life years are saved. It is based on an evidence‐ and ethics‐based Canadian framework, and would become operational where demand for blood greatly exceeds supply, and where all measures to manage supply and demand have been exhausted. The guidance complements existing national shortage plans for red cells and platelets.