"Are my blood products coming?": Implementation of a novel blood product tracker in the electronic health record system.

Abstract

Background: Blood transfusions are the most common procedure performed in American hospitals. The steps required for blood product delivery are often misunderstood by providers, leading to numerous phone calls to the blood bank requesting order status. Distracting calls can lengthen turnaround time, especially during blood product or staff shortages. We sought a tool to address these questions and reduce distraction. This study highlights a novel blood tracker tool implemented in the electronic health record (EHR) that allows providers to see their blood order's status.

Study design and methods: With a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, we constructed a user-friendly blood tracker highly visible in our EHR. It shows the status of a blood product in real time from "order printed" to "preparing" to "on its way." We surveyed blood bank technologists to determine if call volume and distraction changed.

Results: We counted the number of views per month as a surrogate of usage. The blood tracker was viewed 109,626 times per month on average from January through December 2023. The fraction of technologists who received 21 or more calls per shift decreased by 47%.

Discussion: We successfully constructed and implemented a novel blood tracker into our EHR that relays the status of a blood product. It is a highly viewed piece of information in our EHR and decreases blood bank call volume as reported by blood bank technologists. Its success demonstrates that closed-loop communication between the lab and providers regarding blood products is beneficial within our organization and potentially others.