Abstract

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 Background and Objectives

  Hospital blood transfusion committees supervise blood transfusion in hospitals. These committees could save time and cost by prevention of blood loss. This study was conducted to assess the performance of hospital blood transfusion committees in Tehran in 2005-2006.

  Materials and Methods

  In this retrospective study, 46 reports from 13 hospitals (9 community and 4 private) being sent to Tehran Blood Transfusion Center in 2005-2006 were assessed. All reports were assessed from the perspective of duties entrusted by Iranian Ministry of Health. These duties were classified as (1) report of blood transfusion complications, (2) statistical report of blood transfusions, (3) statistical report of blood orders from different wards of hospitals, (4) report of blood transfusion indications, (5) report of educational programs, and (6) assessment of personnel problems and equipment of blood banks.

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 Results

  Report of blood transfusion complications (77%) and report of blood transfusion indications (23%) were the most and the least reported duties, respectively. The most and the least relative frequencies for all hospitals, community, and private hospitals were 23%-77%, 33%-78% and 0%-75%, respectively. Committee reports in community hospitals were better than private ones, though the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Cross match to transfusion ratio was considerable only in one hospital (3.05).

 Conclusions

  This study showed that reports of hospital blood transfusion committees in Tehran in 2005-2006 are in a relatively poor condition. This condition in private hospitals was worse than community ones. More focus on reports of blood transfusion indications seems to be necessary. Since cross match to transfusion ratio is an important performance indicator for hospitals, it should receive a higher level of attention of hospital committees.

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 Key words: Process assessment, Blood transfusion, Blood grouping and crossmatching, Iran