Evaluation of blood requisition and utilization practices at a tertiary care hospital blood bank in Islamabad, Pakistan

Introduction: The significance of appropriate completion of blood request forms (BRFs) is frequently underrated by the clinicians which results in wastage and increased risk of inappropriate therapy. The judicious use of blood components can be assessed by the crossmatch-to-transfusion ratio (C:T), transfusion probability (%T), and transfusion index (TI). The current study assessed the standard of completion of BRFs and blood components utilization at a Tertiary Care Hospital Blood Bank. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, prospective study conducted at the Department of Blood Transfusion Services, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University Hospital, Islamabad, from January to April 2016. A total of 5957 BRFs received between January and April 2016 were reviewed. The data were entered in SPSS version 20.0 (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and analyzed for completeness, legibility, and blood component utilization through calculation of key indicators including C:T ratio, transfusion probability (%T), and TI. Results: Out of the 5957 request forms reviewed, only 12.7% forms were completed in full. The overall C:T ratio, %T, and TI were 1.52, 65.38, and 0.65, respectively. The same indicators for the Maternal and Child Health Centre (MCHC) were 10.7, 9.32, and 0.09. Conclusion: Incomplete blood transfusion request forms create difficulties for the blood bank staff in comprehending the requests which may compromise patient safety. Similarly, the efficiency of MCHC blood transfusion services is far from optimum. The Hospital Transfusion Committee can play a key role in solving this problem and thus improving the standards of Patient Blood Management.