Does the United States of America Have a System for Reporting Serious Hazards of Transfusion?

Abstract

SUMMARyWhile health care providers, governmental agencies and public interest groups in the United States show concern about blood safety and transfusion reactions, there is no unified national reporting system. This lack of unity derives largely from the structure (or lack thereof) of the health care system in the U.S. The hazards of transfusion are described by a patchwork of regulations, reports and studies, many of them voluntary. Even without a unified system, the United States does have examples of reports that cover the usual elements of a national reporting or monitoring system. Most of the elements of a national system have been undertaken by cooperative groups, such as the BaCon Study Group, or by smaller but very informative public studies, such as the State of New york study of transfusion errors. The collection of very basic information‐how many units of blood are collected and where and what components are made‐is privately handled and incompletely funded.The current reporting practices lack pro‐active approaches in dealing with emerging infectious diseases capable of being spread by blood and tissue. The West Nile Virus infections from blood and tissue that occurred last summer are examples of full investigations that were triggered by patient deaths rather than early reports.