Risk management in transfusion medicine: a hospital transfusion service perspective

The hospital transfusion service has always been at the heart of the blood component therapy chain. It has had the multiple roles of not only maintaining an inventory of a wide range of blood components, monitoring their storage conditions and ensuring compatibility when appropriate, but also being the source of expertise in transfusion medicine, and attempting to follow up any adverse consequences of transfusion. Hospital transfusion medicine has been seen essentially as a scientific and technical specialty with a minimal component of medical input. This is now changing and transfusion medicine is becoming an all embracing specialty where the hospital transfusion service still remains at the heart of transfusion medicine, but a much higher level of understanding is necessary at the clinical and consumer level.