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.