BACKGROUND: Careful consideration should be given administering a blood transfusion according to the transfusion criteria because blood components may cause various adverse reactions. In the future, a shortage of blood is inevitable due to strengthening the criteria of donor deferral and the increasing population of aged people, and this will cause a significant dearth of the blood supply. Therefore, we have developed a computerized blood auditing program for reducing the amount of blood transfused by changing the transfusion practices of clinicians. METHODS: The blood audit program was developed to automatically check the clinical information, the pretransfusion laboratory test results, the operation etc of patients who are undergoing transfusion based on the laboratory information system (LIS). The criteria for appropriateness were based on the national transfusion guideline and the transfusion criteria of Severance Hospital. We evaluated the transfusion appropriateness of transfusing red blood cells (RBCs) and fresh frozen plasma (FFP) from April, 2009 to June, 2009 using this audit program. RESULTS: RBCs were transfused to 2,353 patients over 5,652 episodes, and a total of 11,055 units were transfused. FFP was transfused to 574 patients over 1,228 episodes and a total of 4,258 units were transfused. We found that 1,120 (19.9%) RBC transfusion episodes and 377 (30.7%) FFP transfusion episodes were inappropriate. The proportion of inappropriate transfusion was higher in surgical departments than that in medical departments. CONCLUSION: Our computerized audit program evaluated a high number of transfusions in a short time, and we obtained results reflecting the entire past history of transfusions, and we can continuously audit transfusion using this program. We think that feedback to physicians who order transfusions would improve the appropriate use of transfusion.
Aged ; Blood Transfusion ; Clinical Laboratory Information Systems ; Erythrocytes ; Humans ; Plasma ; Tissue Donors