Patient blood management

Patient blood management encompasses a holistic approach to the use of blood for an individual patient.  It uses the premise of ‘why transfuse’ rather then ‘why not’ and hence the need to balance carefully the benefit and any potential harm.  Transfusion avoidance or minimisation stems from the understanding that blood and its components are biological products with effects that are still not fully understood, in particular, the potential for unwanted effects.

Patient blood management is individualised care that has the patient at the centre with careful attention to detail and the aim being better treatment outcomes.  This care relates to maximisation of haemoglobin e.g. pre-operatively, minimisation of blood loss including blood taking, intra-operatively and post-operatively and use of alternative agents to blood transfusion where these are available and feasible.

On this page we present practical information and examples that a clinician can add to their tool kit for patient care.

Blood Matters has developed an information brochure that can be utilised to assist when informing consumers and as a guide for blood management practice.

• Blood management brochure (325kb, pdf)

Resources relating to the risk involved in transfusion:

• Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre - Presentation - Risk and Safety - November 2004 (152kb, pdf)