[French haemovigilance from 1994 to nowadays: Evolution and prospects]

Born in France in 1993, haemovigilance aims at monitoring the blood transfusion chain from the donor to the recipient, receiving labile blood products. It differs from the other vigilances due to its organization and its completeness dealing with the collected information. Prior to the European directive, the French agency created a new gravity level: grade 0, aiming at reporting and analyzing the blood transfusion chain dysfunction. Thus, haemovigilance gradually integrates the management of the risks and is given new missions in hospitals and private hospitals. One of its first actions will be to achieve an a-priori analysis, preventing the risks throughout the blood transfusion chain. Such crosscutting missions will be used to manage the coordination of vigilance and in some cases identity monitoring. Haemovigilance may be a key player in identity monitoring because patients' immunology-hematological data base can make it possible to confirm or deny a patient's identity (misused identity or homonyms). Haemovigilance is going to meet other challenges such as the training of health professionals', the implementation of patients' blood management and the periodic revision of the blood transfusions bulletin. A new crosscutting medical profession appears in some countries: blood transfusion practitioner. It combines vigilance, risk management, support for the therapeutic blood transfusions, health professionals training and the evaluation of practices and results. A final mission would be for haemovigilance to be responsible for medicinal products derived from human blood to allow a better monitoring of plasma transfusions.