Increased hospital costs associated with red blood cell transfusion

Abstract

RBC transfusions were independently associated with significantly higher hospital costs. The financial implication to hospital budgets will assist in prioritizing areas to reduce the rate of RBC transfusions and in implementing patient blood management programs.

‘True Blood’ The Critical Care Story: An audit of blood sampling practice across three adult, paediatric and neonatal intensive care settings

“…36 Additionally, the cumulative effect and costs due to iatrogenic anaemia in the critically ill are substantial and are well documented within adult ICU and healthcare institutions. 2,3,13 If adult blood sampling volumes were reduced to the described neonatal volumes, this would result in over 6000 l less blood wasted annually due to testing and sampling. 36 The direct and indirect costs associated with the processing, labour and consequences of potentially redundant diagnostic tests is continuing to place a significant encumbrance on strained healthcare systems.…”

“…Current evidence suggests that PRBC transfusions are associated with infectious and inflammatory complications, significant financial costs, worse clinical outcomes and transfusion errors. 1,7 A recent Australian retrospective cohort study 13 described the annual total hospital-associated cost of PRBC transfusions as AU$77 million; with the inpatient costs of those who received a blood transfusion 1.83 times higher than those not transfused, after adjusting for confounders. The use of PRBC remains a significant financial burden on the Australian healthcare system.…”

Perioperative Patient Blood Management Programme. Multidisciplinary recommendations from the Patient Blood Management Initiative Group

“…The experience of other hospitals/healthcare institutions shows that applying PBM principles throughout the entire perioperative period may decrease mortality [12,13], morbidity [12,14], in-hospital length of stay [12,13] and costs [15], allowing for a better use of medical resources [16], while maintaining patient safety [17].…”

Patient Blood Management Bundles to Facilitate Implementation

“…There is a large amount of research evidence that the successful implementation of PBM reduces perioperative blood loss and transfusion needs [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], perioperative morbidity [13,16], mortality [14,16], length of hospital stay [14,16], and costs [21]. In this respect, the World Health Organization has officially been urging member states to implement PBM since 2010 (WHA63.12).…”