Purpose The purpose of the study was to develop and implement an institution-specific trigger tool based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement medication module trigger tool (IHI MMTT) in order to detect and monitor ADEs. Methods We performed an investigator-driven, single-center study using retrospective and prospective patient data to develop (“development phase”) and implement (“implementation phase”) an efficient, institution-specific trigger tool based on the IHI MMTT. Complete medical data from 1008 patients hospitalized in 2018 were used in the development phase. ADEs were identified by chart review. The performance of two versions of the tool was assessed by comparing their sensitivities and specificities. Tool A employed only digitally extracted triggers (“e-trigger-tool”) while Tool B employed an additional manually extracted trigger. The superior tool – taking efficiency into account – was applied prospectively to 19–22 randomly chosen charts per month for 26 months during the implementation phase. Results In the development phase, 189 (19%) patients had ≥1 ADE (total 277 ADEs). The time needed to identify these ADEs was 15 minutes/chart. A total of 203 patients had ≥1 trigger (total 273 triggers – Tool B). The sensitivities and specificities of Tools A and B were 0.41 and 0.86, and 0.43 and 0.86, respectively. Tool A was more time-efficient than Tool B (4 vs 9 minutes/chart) and was therefore used in the implementation phase. During the 26-month implementation phase, 22 patients experienced trigger-identified ADEs and 529 did not. The median number of ADEs per 1000 patient days was 6 (range 0–13). Patients with at least one ADE had a mean hospital stay of 22.3 ± 19.7 days, compared to 8.0 ± 7.6 days for those without an ADE (p = 2.7×10 −14 ). Conclusion We developed and implemented an e-trigger tool that was specific and moderately sensitive, gave consistent results and required minimal resources.

Formerly developed resuscitation fluids solely imitated the main function of the blood -oxygen transport. A research driven by the army requested an oxygen carrier that does not need cross typing and cooled storage. Artificial oxygen carriers (AOC) use either the molecular oxygen bondage to hemoglobin: HBOC- "hemoglobin based oxygen carriers" or the physical dissolution of oxygen in the blood plasma compartment by hyperbaric pressure in perfluorocarbon emulsions (PFC). Decades of preclinical and clinical research did pass but the results were disappointing- in Russia, a not well designed PFC is available locally and the only approved HBOC in South Africa is not being used much. Other products, just prior to filing for FDA approval, did not achieve convincing study results and research and production was stopped. Some trials have been stopped by the FDA for safety reasons, half of trials with the primary endpoint reduction of allogeneic transfusion requirement were unsuccessful or offset by an increased blood requirement later. However, some ventures currently are trying to use the knowledge gained so far and are investigating third and fourth generation products of artificial blood components. These imitate the cellular structure of red cells as micells, nanocapsules, (ABC- artificial blood cells) or gas bubbles (microbubbles), admixture of volume substitutes such as starches, gelatin or albumin or use hyperbaric oxygenation [38]. Artificial platelets are in clinical phase IIa, recombinant albumin in phase III. In this article, a short overview about the current situation on artificial blood products is given. The critical point for the break through for artificial blood products did not come yet but could be ahead-