Blood utilization and quality indicators at a university hospital in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Blood transfusion is a common, essential procedure when treating many different medical and surgical conditions. Efficient utilization of blood bank facilities by frequent auditing is crucial; however, few studies have examined blood utilization in Saudi Arabia. We aimed to review the blood ordering patterns and transfusion practices, and blood bank audit effectiveness at a single center in Saudi Arabia and compare our results with those of a similar study performed in the same center 20 years ago.

This study was a retrospective descriptive chart review of all healthy blood donors and recipients from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2020. We evaluated the crossmatching-to-transfusion ratio (C/T) as an indicator of blood bank utilization and compared the findings with those of the previous study. We also evaluated changes in blood bank utilization during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Findings from 27,414 donors (men, 94.9%; mean age, 32.2 + 9.6 years) showed a 71% increase in blood donations compared to that of 2000. The donations gradually increased over the years, peaking just before COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020. For 3,836 patients, 13,324 units of blood were crossmatched (average, 3.47 crossmatch/patient), with 23% of the crossmatch requests from surgical departments. The average C/T ratio, transfusion index, and transfusion probability (T%) were 1.37, 2.55, and 73.2%, respectively. The C/T ratio decreased by 54% between 2000 and 2020. During the pandemic, crossmatching decreased by 26% between 2019 and 2020, but with comparable C/T ratio in 2019 (1.45) and 2020 (1.39).

Our hospital blood bank utilization improved over the past 20 years, showing increased donations, reduced C/T ratio, and increased T%. This improvement emphasizes the importance of blood donation campaigns, blood bank auditing, restrictive transfusion guidelines, and physician education.