Wrong Patient – Wrong Unit: Preventing Transfusion Errors
Previous newsletter articles have discussed the importance of appropriate transfusion decisions as a critical element of transfusion safety, as well as the role of bedside nursing as vigilant advocates...
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Improving Blood Transfusion Consent
Some time ago my delightful 80+ year-old grandmother was diagnosed with a GI bleed that led to hospitalization and multiple transfusions. As I am the only nurse in the family, she made a point to tell...
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Blood Administration from The Joint Commission Perspective
The Joint Commission (TJC) has been evaluating and accrediting hospital laboratory services since 1979 and freestanding laboratories since 1995. Today, approximately 3,000 clinical laboratories have...
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The Joint Commission Reported Transfusion-Related Sentinel Events
Last fall The Joint Commission (TJC) published sentinel event data from 2004 through the first 3 quarters of 2011.1 While TJC cautions that this data is not epidemiologically meaningful because the...
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Who is truly ordering transfusions at your hospital?
As Blood Utilization Committees work to implement standardized transfusion order forms that encourage clinically appropriate transfusions, I am seeing that it is often nurses who are filling out the...
View ArticleInfuse Platelets as Slowly as Medically Necessary
Bacterial contamination of platelet products is a serious risk of transfusion. As many as 1 in every 1000 units may be contaminated from the introduction of low concentrations of skin bacteria at the...
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