Transfusion medicine
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Transfusion medicine · Aug 2004
A simple automatized audit system for following and managing practices of platelet and plasma transfusions in a neonatal intensive care unit.
During neonatal intensive care, blood components are often used in clinical situations where both their efficacy and safety lack solid justification. A practical system to continuously analyse actual transfusion practices is a prerequisite for improvements of quality in transfusion therapy. We hypothesized that such a system would reveal inappropriate variations in clinical decision making and offer a means for staff education and quality improvement and assurance. ⋯ Inappropriate transfusions of both platelets and plasma remain a significant challenge for quality assurance of neonatal intensive care. Automated recording of pretransfusion platelet count and prothrombin time reliably identified the poorly justified transfusions and thus offered a practical resource-saving tool for quality assurance of transfusion in the NICU. A significant shift towards more appropriate use of plasma was demonstrated after implementation of the audit system.