Unfortunately, it is the surgeon and anesthesiologist that are at fault in wasting autologous predonations. This very expensive and completely not necessary. Patients often recieve anywhere from 500 cc's to 1000 cc's of crystaloid solution during a routine procedure and then become a little hemodiluted. It would not be that much trouble to hang the patient's own blood. The added citrate could easily be reversed with a touch of calcium chloride. It's laziness and a lack of concern for the expense of the bloodbank and effort by the patient to donate this unit. Education is definitely needed for the surgeons and anesthesiologists by the hospital bloodbank manager or physician director to get the message across. As a Perfusionist, I perform acute normovolemic hemodilution in the OR for many heart patients and believe me, I see to it that the patient gets every drop of pre-donated autologous back. The surgeons I work with are very happy for my efforts. Another means of getting the mesage across mught be for the off-site bloodbank director to issue a written statement to the ordering surgeons addressing the problem and making them aware of the costs both monetarily and in patient time and effort to pre-donate. Maybe if the ordering surgeons themselves would give a unit or two of blood and then have it thrown in garbage, then maybe some changes would come about. Mark
Unfortunately, it is the surgeon and anesthesiologist that are at fault in wasting autologous predonations. This very expensive and completely not necessary. Patients often recieve anywhere from 500 cc's to 1000 cc's of crystaloid solution during a routine procedure and then become a little hemodiluted. It would not be that much trouble to hang the patient's own blood. The added citrate could easily be reversed with a touch of calcium chloride. It's laziness and a lack of concern for the expense of the bloodbank and effort by the patient to donate this unit. Education is definitely needed for the surgeons and anesthesiologists by the hospital bloodbank manager or physician director to get the message across. As a Perfusionist, I perform acute normovolemic hemodilution in the OR for many heart patients and believe me, I see to it that the patient gets every drop of pre-donated autologous back. The surgeons I work with are very happy for my efforts. Another means of getting the mesage across mught be for the off-site bloodbank director to issue a written statement to the ordering surgeons addressing the problem and making them aware of the costs both monetarily and in patient time and effort to pre-donate. Maybe if the ordering surgeons themselves would give a unit or two of blood and then have it thrown in garbage, then maybe some changes would come about. Mark