Audit-based corrective and preventive actions to reduce wastage of blood components at a single blood center: A quality improvement study.

INTRODUCTION: The rate of discarded blood components or "wastage rate" reflects on the whole process, preparation, and production of blood and its quality control. It is the ratio of blood and blood components discarded to the total number of collections. The discard or unusability of blood products are many, and the ones that can be monitored and regarded as indicators to be improvised on are QC failure rate, transfusion-transmitted infection (TTI) positivity, and component discards (other than TTI), including those that caused transfusion reactions. These were studied over four intervention cycles to see if they could be improved. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a clinical audit and quality improvement study. The clinical audit was conducted over four cycles over 16 months. Each cycle included three stages wherein the data required for calculating those key performance indicators (KPIs) of the blood center were studied and analyzed, and causes for the poorly performing ones were identified; a corrective plan was drawn and implemented, followed by data collection and interpretation of the same in the next cycle for improvement. The data were compiled using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and analyzed using SPSS version 19 (IBM Corporation, New York, USA). RESULTS: The overall discard rates due to all cumulative causes mentioned were at about 5% at the start of the first cycle. The various factors comprising preparatory, preparation, and the management of inventory and issue were analyzed, and corrective interventions were performed in every cycle. The discard rates were reduced to about 3% by the end of the four cycles. The difference was statistically significant, with a P < 0.05. CONCLUSION: The implementation of Corrective and preventive action measures can rectify the deviations in KPIs. The blood center director, staff, and doctors should be responsible for maintaining and continuously improving the quality indicators.

Fallacies of a purely virtual platform: Virtual plus reality versus virtual reality - A case study.

Pretransplant immunological assessment of a transplant donor has evolved significantly over the last few decades with the advent of testing platforms with enhanced sensitivity and varying formats. The single antigen bead assay (SAB) assay, a virtual crossmatch (vXM) is used extensively and considered the gold standard for defining donor-specific antibodies (DSA) in many parts of the World. A country like India, is however challenged by the lack of adequate representation of locally frequent HLA alleles and hence in our institution, we continue to perform a physical crossmatch (pXM) on the Complement Dependent Cytotoxicity and flow cytometry platforms alongside the SAB. We report here a case report where the discrepancy between platforms of testing have raised certain pertinent questions in our interpretation of the vXM.

Assessment of the Key Performance Indicator Proposed by NABH in the Blood Centre of a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in Southern India.

Quality indicators are tools for continuous improvement to enable the blood center to achieve its standards of the highest quality. Hence, they have to be established and monitored regularly for which NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals) accreditation should be sought for. This study was undertaken to assess the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) through clinical audit quality control study of ten parameters, with a goal to improve and meet the benchmark as defined by NABH. All 10 Key Performance Indicators defined by NABH were analysed prospectively in a tertiary care blood centre of southern India. Parameters were compared to that of bench mark standards. Root cause analysis of all non-conformance parameters were done. Problem were identified and action taken to achieve KPI benchmarks in all deviations. Out of the ten KPI's which were studied, more than 50% meet the quality standards. The ones that did not meet the bench mark were TTI-HIV% which was 0.44%, TTI-Syphilis (RPR)% 0.26%, Number of units received back for discarding 5.96%, PRBC wastage% (on-shelf) was 2.11%, FFP, Cryoprecipitate wastage % (on-shelf) was 2.71%, the mean TAT for crossmatch of emergency PRBC blood was 18.3 min, 41.11% of FFP QC failure failed, Delay in transfusion time beyond 30 min after issue was 19.14%, Donor Deferral rate was 16.36% and TTI Outliers% No. of deviations beyond ± 2SD for HBsAg, HCV, HIV were 14.43%, 12.59% and17.73% respectively. Present study has helped to understand the flaws and problems faced by a tertiary care blood center in sustaining quality. It also actively captured and analysed multiple cross sections of non-conformances.

Optimising platelet usage during the induction therapy of acute myeloid leukaemia: Impact of physician education.

INTRODUCTION: Platelet products are scarce and expensive resources to be used judiciously. However, inappropriate usage is common. Lack of physician awareness is an important issue. We implemented a physician education program (PEP) along with repeated WhatsApp reminders at our centre. We audited the platelet usage practise before and after the intervention. METHODS: Charts of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) treated between January 2020 and August 2020 was reviewed, and the mean platelet usage per patient per day was calculated. Physician education was implemented between September 2020 and December 2020 (2 PowerPoint lectures of 20 min each and weekly WhatsApp messages containing the guidelines). Data of patients treated between Jan 2021 and August 2021 was prospectively audited to understand platelet usage and the indications for transfusions. The British Committee for the Standards in Haematology (BCSH) platelet transfusion guidelines were used as the adjudication tool to evaluate compliance. The mean platelet usage per day per kg body weight of a patient before and after the PEP was compared using the t-test. RESULTS: Group A (before physician education) consisted of 22 patients, and group B (after physician education) consisted of 23 patients. The mean number of platelet transfusions for each patient in a day per kg body weight was 125.7 × 108 in group A whereas, after the PEP, it had reduced to 73.9 × 108 amounting to an absolute reduction of 51 × 108 (58.8%) from the baseline with a statistical significance of P = 0.001. After implementing the PEP, the mean number of random donor platelets used reduced by 10.25 units (34% reduction), and the mean single donor platelets used reduced by 0.83 units (19% reduction). The 190 requests for platelet transfusion received during this period were classified as appropriate (157/190), which constituted 82.63% of the requests, or inappropriate (33/190), which accounted for 17.36%. CONCLUSIONS: A short-duration education programme supplemented with weekly WhatsApp messages and an active feedback mechanism on the rationale of platelet transfusion by the treating physician and transfusion specialist could significantly reduce platelet consumption during the therapy of acute myeloid leukaemia patients. This is a measure that can be considered by all high-volume haematology centres, which can improve patient safety and reduce costs.

Plasmapheresis in lethal yellow phosphorus poisoning: a scope for recovery.

A 16-year-old girl presented with grade 3 hepatic encephalopathy (HE) following suicide attempt after consuming a lethal dose of yellow phosphorus containing rodenticide. Although she was a candidate for liver transplantation, it could not be done. In the absence of a specific antidote for yellow phosphorus poisoning, the patient was managed conservatively. In addition, low volume-therapeutic plasma exchange (LV-TPE) was initiated, which resulted in a dramatic improvement in HE. Although liver transplantation is the definitive treatment, this case has shown that TPE has a promising role as a 'bridge to recovery' in situations where transplantation is not feasible. We describe our experience with the above-mentioned case, along with the sequence of clinical recovery and the trend in biochemical parameters during follow-up. The patient made a full recovery and is doing well.