Blood Banking Case Study

One vital function of an elaborate healthcare system worldwide is the safety, reliability and availability of blood supply (Shaz, 2013). The main objective of laboratories that houses a blood banking section is to administer needed blood or blood components to patients while avoiding or minimizing transfusion reactions that may compromise the patient’s health or worsen any condition the patient already has (McClelland, Phillips, 1994). Each hospital or laboratory is equipped with its own standard operating procedure (SOP) that provides laboratory personnel instructions on how tests are performed to yield consistency and to be within acceptable standards in their laboratory. This standard operating procedure is based on a higher institution

The study provided a short questionnaire that was sent to over 400 different hospital haematology laboratories. This study encountered an obstacle with calculating error rate per patient transfused. This study also provided several ways to improve the safety and quality of service for blood transfusion in Britain: (1) a national system for incident reports regarding blood transfusion reaction should be present, (2) managerial responsibility within each hospitals should be clearly stated and coordinated, (3) incident reports and proper corrective action should be recorded and should be reported to the national scheme, (4) number of blood transfused and patients that have undergone transfusion should be recorded statistically and reported nationally, and (5) alternative and cost effective ways of improving safety on blood transfusion should be identified and

The key principles on every stage of the transfusion process are positive patient identification, good documentation and excellent communication. (British Committee for Standards in Hematology(BCSH))

Positive patient identification is essential. It is done by recording the patient 's last and first name, date of birth, and unique identification number. This process is followed by patient information and consent for transfusion where patient information leaflets should be used to explain to the possible patients in an understandable manner. In the pre-transfusion documentation, reason for transfusion through laboratory data and a summary of information which includes the benefits, risks, alternatives and patient consent, is provided to the patient.

Two other essential documents are prescription and requests for transfusion. Prescription contains components to be transfused, date of transfusion, volume or number of units to be transfused. Requests for transfusion on the other hand includes minimum patient identifiers, patient 's gender, diagnosis, volume and number of units required, time and location of transfusion and name and contact number of