Type and Hold System for Better Blood Utilization

Abstract

Blood bank personnel can convince surgeons to change their presurgical blood orders from a type-and-cross-match to a type-and-hold approach. To do this, it is necessary to guarantee blood availability within a short time frame if blood should be unexpectedly required. Such a change in blood orders significantly reduced the number of unnecessary crossmatches and the amount of wasted outdated blood. Economic savings and conservation of resources were realized without compromising the patients'' safety or service quality.