At the Blood Service, we are committed to ongoing quality improvement and patient care.
We have developed numerous successful and productive partnerships with blood improvement collaboratives such as BloodSafe, Blood Matters and Blood Watch, and with individual clinicians through the Blood Service Fellows program.
Our most recent partnership was with Dr Philip Crispin, a clinical haematologist and Clinical Director of the ACT’s Blood Counts Program, and his team at Canberra Hospital and Health Services. The 1.5-year project focused on improving blood management and transfusion appropriateness in obstetrics in order to reduce red cell transfusion.
The Blood Service support for this project included experts from a range of disciplines, tools to support practice, and expertise in reaching target audiences to effect practice change.
The project culminated in a one-day iron symposium for health professionals in April 2016 and a number of clinical practice improvement tools to guide decision making and patient care including:
- five algorithms to guide maternal haemoglobin assessment and optimisation
- a traffic light poster to guide red cell transfusion in maternity
- a patient handout on oral iron preparations to treat iron deficiency anaemia during pregnancy
- a keynote presentation from Dr Daniel Byrne: Iron therapy in general practice - yes we can.
As a result of the partnership, there have been positive practice changes that are in keeping with patient blood management guidelines.
For more information about the collaboration or the clinical practice improvement project please contact us.