health innovation
Patient blood management:
A concept ignored so far in India!
While the developed nations already have a high end process for the effective
blood management to prevent loss of lives during transfusion, the countries like
India have been left far behind
P
BY SACHIN ARYA
atient Blood Management
(PBM) is an international
initiative in the best practice
for transfusion medicine. The
concept was highlighted in 2010 by
the World Health Assembly as an
important concept to improve patient
safety. And all World Health
Organization (WHO) member states
were requested to implement this
concept in a timely manner to optimize
use of blood products by taking
clinical decisions informed by evidence
and thereby save scarce blood.
Australia, United States, Japan, most
of European Union (EU), and some
emerging economies have
implemented the concept of PBM.
India, as of now, has not developed
or launched a protocol for PBM though
the concept is in use in a limited way.
A mind set change is critical to move
towards PBM.
PBM ensures improved patient
outcomes by minimizing use of blood
transfusion through evidence-based
and targeted rather than behaviorbased use of blood products. This
minimizes risks of mortality, morbidity,
hospital acquired infection – sepsis –
arising from RBC transfusion. It also
leads to reduction in costs to patient,
hospitals, and other stakeholders like
medical insurance companies and
blood banks.
Where does India stand now?
Meanwhile, in India the need for PBM
is fast emerging due to various reasons
36
BioVoiceNews | June 2016
Vijyoti Education Foundation has taken
a lead. It is a corporate social enterprise
focused on pharma, healthcare and
education sectors with a goal to
improve lives by enabling transition
from status-quo states of inefficiencies
to innovative readiness, adoption
and practice.
that include
increasing realization that transfusion
needs to be evidenc