Modern Patient Blood Management in Arthroplasty

One of the oldest and still commonest procedures in clinical practice, allogeneic blood transfusion (ABT), is not fully supported by available evidence. In the last few decades, increasing concerns about unfavorable outcomes associated with ABT, anticipation of future insufficient blood supply, and awareness of the cost (direct and indirect) of transfusion have led to the promotion of patient blood management (PBM) as a cost-effective strategy, beneficial for patients as well as for society (Shander et al. 2010). PBM programs utilize a series of measures with a proven ability to reduce ABT and to be cost-effective. Despite that the impact of PBM on patient clinical outcomes needs to be fully defined and future studies are needed, PBM should be adopted as a new standard of care.

Economic considerations on transfusion medicine and patient blood management

In times of escalating health-care cost, it is of great importance to carefully assess the cost-effectiveness and appropriateness of the most resource-consuming health interventions. A long-standing and common clinical practice that has been underestimated in cost and overestimated in effectiveness is the transfusion of allogeneic blood products. Studies show that this intervention comes with largely underestimated service cost and unacceptably high utilisation variability for matched patients, thus adding billions of unnecessary dollars to the health-care expenditure each year. Moreover, a large and increasing body of literature points to a dose-dependent increase of morbidity and mortality and adverse long-term outcomes associated with transfusion whereas published evidence for benefit is extremely limited. This means that transfusion may be a generator for increased hospital stay and possible re-admissions, resulting in additional billions in unnecessary expenditure for the health system. In contrast to this, there are evidence-based and cost-effective treatment options available to pre-empt and reduce allogeneic transfusions. The patient-specific rather than a product-centred application of these multiple modalities is termed patient blood management (PBM). From a health-economic perspective, the expeditious implementation of PBM programmes is clearly indicated. Both patients and payers could benefit from this concept that has recently been endorsed through the World Health Assembly resolution WHA63.12.

Cost of allogeneic blood transfusion

Blood is a scarce and costly resource to society. Therefore, it is important to understand the costs associated with blood, blood components, and blood transfusions. Previous studies have attempted to account for the cost of blood but, because of different objectives, perspectives, and methodologies, they may have underestimated the true (direct and indirect) costs associated with transfusions. Recognizing these limitations, a panel of experts in blood banking and transfusion medicine gathered at the Cost of Blood Consensus Conference to identify a set of key elements associated with whole blood collection, transfusion processes, follow-up, and to establish a standard methodology in estimating costs. Activity-based costing (ABC), the proposed all-inclusive reference methodology, is expected to produce standard and generalizable estimates of the cost of blood transfusion, and it should prove useful to payers, buyers, and society (all of whom bear the cost of blood). In this article, we argue that the ABC approach should be adopted in future cost-of-transfusion studies. In particular, we address the supply and demand dilemma associated with blood and blood components; evaluate the economic impact of transfusion-related adverse outcomes on overall blood utilization; discuss hemovigilance as it contributes not to the expense, but also the safety of transfusion; review previous cost-of-transfusion studies; and summarize the ABC approach and its utility as a methodology for estimating transfusion costs.