Patient Blood Management

Patient blood management (PBM) describes programs to formalize and provide a structure for many traditional activities promoting appropriate transfusion therapy. A successful PBM must involve a key staff to carry out the daily activities. Often this individual is called a Transfusion Safety Officer although the responsibilities are more broad that blood safety. EPO can be used preoperatively either to treat anemia or to minimize blood use in large blood loss procedures. In orthopedic surgery, EPO increases the hemoglobin and decreases blood loss. Autologous blood is widely believed to be the safest blood and, as a result, interest in and the use of autologous blood increased dramatically with the onset of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic. The medical history for antilogous donation is the same as for allergenic donation except that, since the donor is actually a patient, additional emphasis should be placed on questions about medications and medical conditions or illnesses.