[The maximum surgical blood order schedule]

For elective surgeries over ordering of blood is a common practice. The goal of the Maximum Surgical Blood Order Schedule (MSBOS) is to promote efficient use of blood. The purpose of this Portuguese study is to analyse the crossmatched blood units for elective surgery and the real amount of transfused blood, the crossmatch:transfusion rate (C:T) which must be less than 2.5. As in other Blood Banks, the differences are more evident in the situations in which the need for blood is very small, the so called Type and Screen. MSBOS should be re-evaluated regularly because of operative environment such as surgeons, operative methods, haemostatic drugs and preoperative conditions of patients can change.