PBM is a big topic in Australia. We will have our first publically funded PBM conference in Perth, WA in June. There are multiple initiatives nationally and at state level. The drivers are from all aspects of health care. This was assured from the start to have a broad spectrum. The outcomes become more evident day by day. PBM is safe and effective. Our National quality and safety agency has now linked hospital accreditation to implementation of certain standards and treatment modalities.

http://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/

Hope that helps. Kind regards, Bernd

Congratulations to you "down under" - what you´ve already achieved there is just great. Good old Europe has to hurry in order not to loose track.

Looking forward to seeing you June 11.

We are also very interested in PBM here in Northern Ireland. Our multidiscliplinary Regional Transfusion Committee conducted several large regional audits over the last 8 years to show considerable deficiencies in the appropriateness of blood transfusion and the treatment of anaemia before transfusion was necessary. Guidelines with better definition of transfusion thresholds were generated and accepted and implemented by all hospitals. Our Department of Health in conjunction with the Regional Transfusion Committee also released guidance on the managment of anaemic adult patients before surgery. Regional blood use is down by over 27% and we have a red cell transfusion index of less than 28 units per 1000 of the population.  

We believe the high quality audits accurately identified the scale of problems with common themes and allowed clear recommendations to be generated to allow front line haemovigilance staff address the issues.  

Audits and guidelines can be found at http://nitransfusion.com/index.html

http://nitransfusion.com/index.html

Dear Damien,

Thank you very much for sharing the Northern Ireland experience with us. From the view of hemotherapy, the most important benefit of improvements in management of preoperative anemia and perioperative patient care is the increase in overall patient safety  

I think, you made an important point by adding high quality audits, which in our hands also help to increase the quality of hemotherapy.

Best,

Markus