Description

Large and/or expanding medical systems, ranging from new facilities to serving locations miles apart, present a unique challenge for the rapid delivery of blood. This program will present three distinct experiences with ensuring high quality transfusion support at increasingly remote locations. 

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) houses Baltimore’s primary adult resource trauma center. In order to facilitate rapid blood delivery to surgical and trauma patients, UMMC Transfusion Service installed two automated blood dispensing refrigerators near the operating rooms as well as a universal donor blood kiosk in the trauma unit. Utilization was initially low but improved to nearly half of all red cell units transfused for surgical patients through the use of accountable quality metrics and data sharing. 

The adult hospital at Stanford Healthcare (SHC) and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) share a transfusion service. In 2018, LPCH opened a new set of ORs that were over 5-minutes one way from the current blood bank. The transfusion service decided to open a staffed satellite transfusion service at LPCH in anticipation of moving the main blood bank in 2019 to an even more distant new adult hospital for SHC. 

Bloodworks Northwest (BWNW) supplies blood for most of the Pacific Northwest as well as staffing and directing a mobile apheresis service and multiple transfusion services across the greater Seattle area, including for the 1571-bed Swedish hospital system. BWNW manages this large geographic and clinical footprint through a combination of technical and administrative solutions, including automated blood dispensing, regional medical directors, and centralized testing.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how blood can be safely stored and dispensed in diverse settings using automated and secure remote solutions
• Evaluate the benefits and challenges of opening a staffed remote transfusion service in response to hospital expansion or system need
• Identify how modernizing practices can reduce the crossmatch to transfusion ratio, free up staff time, reduce wastage, and shorten transport time

Speaker(s):

• Heather McGann, MS, MT(ASCP) SBB, University of Maryland Medical Center
• Dr. Theresa Nester, MD, Bloodworks NW
• Dr. Mrigender Virk, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine