Hemovigilence - Application in Tertiary Care Hospitals

Abstract

The therapeutic uses of blood and its components are very well established as a lifesaving tool but at the same time one should not forget about the adverse effects related to it. The desired safe blood transfusions can be done only if there are enough healthy donors in the society making it a precious therapy. In order to cover these aspects, the term Hemovigilance was added to define blood safety. It is a surveillance mechanism covering the entire blood transfusion, donor vein to recipient vein chain, starting from the collection of blood and its components to the follow up of the recipients. WHO defines it as a process of monitoring, reporting, investigation and analysis of adverse or undesirable events related to the transfusion of blood and its components and taking actions to prevent their occurrence or recurrence [1]. The final results play an essential role in ensuring patient safety by learning from failures and then placing corrective changes in the system to prevent such events in future. The
awareness can be generated only after knowing the trends of transfusion hazards at a particular set up [1, 2].