Audit and education in transfusion medicine

Because transfusions carry risks to the patient and because inappropriate transfusions are costly, interest in audits and effective education in transfusion medicine has increased over the last decade. Audits identify areas of practice that can be improved by follow-up education of the physicians who prescribe the transfusions. Successful educational approaches to follow-up on problems identified by audit include 30-min one-on-one meetings with surgeons, traditional scheduled teaching conferences, daily clinical rounds on transfused patients, prospective review of blood transfusions and installation of transfusion practice algorithms in the operating room. Other than identifying inappropriate transfusions, audit and education have also been used successfully to improve bedside blood administration practices, decrease unnecessary crossmatches and reduce outdating of donor blood. Multi-institutional audits play a useful benchmarking role. In summary, audit followed by targeted education can improve practices in transfusion medicine.