Determining Transfusion Needs: Global Expectations and Realities

Abstract

The process of clinical transfusion therapy consists of three procedures: the ordering process, the selection and compatibility process, and the transfusion process. To know what the real need of blood is, these procedures as elements of the clinical process need to be analysed and understood per patient, discipline and hospital. The need for safe blood and blood products is bedside determined and not so much by the community and its potential blood donors. The clinical transfusion process follows three procedures that leads to the epidemiology of the need of blood and blood components.
Today, with the introduction and development of the patient-oriented patient blood management (PBM) and the 10-year WHO project to advance patient safety, there is growing a changing culture of indication setting, decision