This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (68)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Guidelines for Improving Practice

Alfred J. Grindon, MD; Peter S. Tomasulo, MD; James J. Bergin, MD; Harvey G. Klein, MD; Jacqueline D. Miller, MD; Paul D. Mintz, MD

JAMA. 1985;253(4):540-543.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

BLOOD transfusion can transmit infectious disease, result in potentially lethal acute hemolytic reactions, and cause febrile and allergic reactions in an already ill patient. The dangers of transfusion have led to requirements that hospitals provide peer review of transfusion practice.

While excellent guidelines for hospital transfusion committees have been promulgated in the past,^1,2 dramatic changes in medical practice, such as in open heart surgery and the intensive treatment of oncological disease, have resulted in changes in blood usage. There has been substantial improvement in patient safety: the reduction of posttransfusion hepatitis has been attributed in large part to the use of volunteer blood and fewer catastrophic transfusion accidents to improved technical and clerical performance in hospital transfusion services and at the bedside. Nevertheless, more can be done to improve the use of blood and its components. Better utilization review and quality assurance practices have developed, partly as a result . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the American Red Cross Blood Services, Atlanta (Dr Grindon); the South Florida Blood Service, Miami (Dr Tomasulo); Bethany Medical Center, Kansas City, Kan (Dr Bergin); the Department of Transfusion Medicine, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md (Dr Klein); Sacred Heart Hospital Blood Bank, Eugene, Ore (Dr Miller); and the University of Virginia Medical Center Blood Bank, Charlottesville (Dr Mintz).

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Chairman, Committee on Hospital Transfusion Practices, American Association of Blood Banks National Office, 1117 N 19th St, Suite 600, Arlington, VA 22209 (Dr Grindon).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?