Our Patient Blood Management Program uses a team approach to develop a plan of care that uses the latest drugs, technologies and techniques to decrease blood loss and enhance an individual’s own blood supply.
Before surgery, our physicians and surgeons follow a process to identify patients at risk for transfusion. Patients are screened for anemia (a condition where there are too few red blood cells). If anemic, patients may be treated with iron, erythropoietin (“EPO”) or both to increase their red blood cell count before surgery.
If patients are at high risk of transfusion for any reason, or simply decide they want to avoid blood transfusion, the program develops a coordinated approach to the patient’s hospital care that minimizes blood losses from blood draws and other procedures. In addition, during surgery, modern surgical technologies can collect, filter, and return patients’ own blood cells to their bodies to reduce the need for transfusions.
After surgery, our physicians work with our patients’ providers to help continue blood management techniques and treat anemia without blood transfusion throughout the hospital stay and after discharge whenever possible.
The same principles apply to non-surgical patients and the PBM team helps prevent, minimize and treat anemia to avoid transfusion and aid recovery in patients whether or not they’ve had surgery.