Strategies for improvement of blood consumption management in the operating rooms: experts´ suggestions

Background: In operating rooms, blood product wastage occurs with various reasons especially over-demand ordering during elective surgeries. Consequently, it imposes a heavy financial burden on health system. Therefore, managing blood consumption in the operating rooms is of special importance. Surgeons and anesthesiologists play a key role in blood transfusion practice in operating rooms. Objective: To investigate surgeons´ and anesthesiologists´ perspectives in regard to the effective strategies for better management of blood transfusion practice in operating rooms. Method: In this qualitative cross-sectional study, from January to March 2020, 60 surgeons and anesthesiologists were participated. All of them were working in surgical departments of the general hospitals affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, in Shiraz, Southern Iran. Their viewpoints regarding the improvement of blood consumption management in operating rooms were recorded through interviews and several focus group sessions. Results: After content analysis, the most important recommendations with the highest scores were regular training programs for surgical team (23.3%), collaboration of surgeons, anesthesiologists, and managers of the surgical departments by arrangement of monthly meetings to estimate the number of required blood bags more accurately (23.3%), establishing a well-organized electronic requesting and registration system (13.3%), promoting the ordering process by a comprehensive preoperative evaluation (11.6%), and updating transfusion protocols based on the standards and monitoring the adherence to these standards (10%). Conclusion: Implementing the proposed policies, which are based on the invaluable experiences of related experts would be effective in improving blood consumption management in operating rooms.