Open AccessUse of Blood in Elective Surgery: An Area of Wasted Hospital Resource
Author(s) -
Saleh Sowayan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
annals of saudi medicine/annals of saudi medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 0975-4466
pISSN - 0256-4947
DOI - 10.5144/0256-4947.1994.326
Subject(s) - medicine , blood bank , unavailability , blood units , blood transfusion , audit , emergency medicine , inefficiency , limited resources , surgery , medical emergency , risk analysis (engineering) , management , economics , engineering , reliability engineering , microeconomics
Unavailability of blood is a common cause of canceled operations but clinicians' blood ordering habits have been shown to waste hospital resources. A prospective audit was set up in a blood bank in a teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. Data were separately logged on blood transfusion for all surgical operations between August 1991 and December 1992. Standard terminology was employed. During the 16 months, 565 consecutive operations were logged. Only two of eight departments met the criterion of efficient blood ordering, vis-a-vis a C:T ratio (units crossmatched divided by units transfused) of 2.5:1. Similarly, in the four most frequently performed operations, the transfusions index (Ti) was <0.25, indicating that blood would have been required for <25% of these cases. The study confirms other's experience of inefficiency in blood ordering for surgical operations, plus its attendant waste of resources. It is recommended that unless written and binding guidelines are published on a nationwide basis, clinicians' inefficient methods in ordering blood are unlikely to alter rapidly.