[Patient blood management--How does it work in practice?--the interdisciplinary cooperation]

Abstract

Patient blood management (PBM), as a multidisciplinary, evidence-based treatment concept for reducing anemia and blood losses, should be realized in individual hospitals after local adaptation according to the available facilities.The implementation of a PBM program in clinical institutions will be a challenging but in every case worthwhile task. The local facilities may be insufficient to fulfill the training requirements of a large group of different personnel. Accordingly, sustained support by the hospital's management with provision of the necessary resources for personnel and materials is essential. The formation of the core PBM team, in our case consisting initially of anaesthesiologists, surgeons, internists and transfusion medicine specialists as well as - the particularly important - motivated nursing personnel, is one of the most pressing and primary tasks in the establishment of a PBM project.It is also extremely important to firmly anchor the PBM project permanently within the hospital. Possible steps and details for this purpose are presented and discussed in terms of value and weighting by the authors on the basis of their actual experience in Frankfurt University Hospital.