Primary roles of the HTC
-
Provide an active forum to facilitate communication between those involved with transfusion
-
Recommend or perform practice audits
-
Monitor transfusion practice compared to institutional, national or international benchmarks
- Provide education to effect change in practice.
Membership of the HTC
Institutional representatives
-
Clinicians: Surgery, medicine, paediatrics, haematology, oncology, orthopaedics, O&G, anaesthesia, emergency, ICU.
-
Executive management
-
Clinical risk management/Quality assurance
-
Blood bank scientist in charge
-
Nursing
- Other relevant departments (eg, pharmacy)
External representatives
-
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood (Lifeblood) Transfusion Medicine member
-
Invited or ad hoc members
- Health department.
Motivation
-
Meet with Head of Surgery, Medicine, Anaesthetics, Haematology, Oncology, Emergency/ICU, O&G, Nursing and Transfusion laboratory to motivate and recruit members
-
Report some examples of difficult cases to your hospital executive to gain their support
-
Make them aware of risk management issues for the organisation
-
-
Set a date and have a clear initial agenda
- The initial chair is the most motivated member—You! Define ongoing chair at your first meeting.
-
Deal with a topical issue first
- Some states mandate a Hospital Transfusion Committee (HTC).
Define role and Terms of reference
- Always ask: What do you want to achieve?
HTC activities
Goal setting
-
Always have achievable goals
- Break a big problem into smaller components and choose where to start.
Suggestions for agenda items
-
Reporting and follow up of adverse reactions to transfusion
-
Disseminate and implement national policies and guidelines
-
Development and review of institutional transfusion policies and systems (eg, patient and sample identification)
-
Identification of staff training requirements in clinical and laboratory transfusion practice
- Development of local educational and training materials as required
-
Collection and monitoring of blood ordering practices, use and wastage statistics, errors and incidents
- A great place to start is a small practice audit or the implementation of general education which will help raise the profile of the committee while providing an excellent service for the hospital.
Meeting frequency
-
Frequent enough to get things done, often quarterly
- Pick the best time to suit the majority of the members.
Other tips
-
Executive commitment and active involvement is important
-
Short and informative presentations on topical issues help maintain interest and currency in transfusion practice
-
HTC members have their own networks to assist information exchange—use them
-
Get secretarial support
- Prompt turnaround of minutes helps motivation of members
-
Consider providing food—attendance is always better
- Enjoy it.