
“We believe that the higher the number of measures that can be implemented the more successful the PBM project," said Meybohm. But some core items should be considered: education of surgeons and nurses, stakeholder management including the hospital board of directors, anaemia management and multimodal blood conservation strategies, he added.
The group of experts describes patient blood management (PBM) as “a proactive, patient-centred, and multidisciplinary approach to manage anaemia, optimise haemostasis, minimise iatrogenic blood loss, and harness tolerance to anaemia.”
Meybohm et al. recommend using proven change management principles to implement simple, cost-effective measures to enable hospitals to reduce transfusions.
Their article provides six bundles of PBM components that include 107 different PBM measures. These are intended as a working template which can be used in a stepwise programme to implement practices that are feasible for a particular hospital and its local conditions.
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PBM should be implemented by an institutionally empowered multidisciplinary team - lack of interdisciplinary commitment is recognised as one of the barriers to implementing PBM, they write.
The blocks of measures are arranged in accordance with the guiding principles of PBM and also provide two overarching blocks for project management and performance measurement.
- Block 1: PBM Project Management
- Block 2: First strategy - manage patient’s anaemia
- Block 3: Optimise coagulopathy
- Block 4: Third Strategy—Interdisciplinary Blood Conservation Modalities
- Block 5: Fourth Strategy—Optimal Blood Use With Patient-Centered Decision Making
- Block 6: PBM-Related Metrics, Patient's Outcome, Benchmarking
By using the checklists provided, hospitals can measure the number of implemented measures in the 6 blocks and the extent of implementation, ranging from none/rarely to good. The total points provide a semiquantitative PBM programme level.
“The institution's initial success should drive further motivation and activities in the field of PBM,” the group of experts writes.
Meybohm said that they plan to follow-up the progress of hospitals that implement PBM bundles.
Source: see Reference for article details; interview
Image credit: Pixabay; Universitätsklinikums Frankfurt