An audit to estimate the quality of practices followed during bedside blood transfusion in a tertiary care hospital and role of continuous medical education in it.

Abstract

Blood transfusion is an integral component of the health Service system and it becomes imperative that its benefits, risks as well as prospective and viable alternatives of this common medical intervention are explained explicitly to the patients. Appropriate compliance to bedside blood transfusion practices can also help in avoiding adverse transfusion outcomes. At the same time, it is also crucial to document a patient's valid consent based on their decision after evaluation of the risk to benefit ratio. This audit aims to assess the compliance and adherence to bedside blood transfusion practices in a tertiary care hospital and role of Continuous Medical education (CME) on it. The study involved collection of data for blood transfusion services and practices in two periods, for adults and children, who received transfusion from the month of June 2021 to October 2021 and a re-audit beginning from November 2021 to February 2022 following few CMEs in between involving doctors and nurses. A total of 3240 transfusion procedures were assessed in this duration. In them 1500 (46.3%) took place before CME and remaining 1740 (53.7%) procedures took place after CME. There were statistically significant differences between pre-CME and post-CME bedside transfusion practices. During CME/training session, pre-training and post training knowledge has been evaluated by test which also showed statistically significant difference in knowledge of transfusion medicine & bedside transfusion practices. Our study recommends that there is a need of frequent audit on bedside transfusion practices to check the quality and standards associated with it and also points out the need of continuous medical education on this issue.