The HL7 Orders and Observations Work Group balloted and passed a preliminary version of the HL7 Version 2.6 Implementation Guide: Blood Bank Donation Services, Release 1, after an initial round of balloting in May.

Earlier this month, a slightly revised version of the Implementation Guide was approved 27‐0 in a second ballot. Formal approval of the document came during HL7’s 25th Annual Plenary and Working Group Meeting this week (Sept. 11‐16, 2011) in San Diego, Calif.

 
After the necessary paperwork is filed, the Implementation Guide will be published and made available to HL7 members.   Once published, the guide can be accessed under the “Version 2.x Messaging Standard – Version 2.x Informative Documents” section of the HL7 Standards page on the HL7.org website. 

The Implementation Guide for the blood banking specification, informally called Blood Banking HL7 (BBHL7), was developed by a multidisciplinary project team over two years. “This significant achievement is the result of tireless work by a talented group of people,” said Jonathan Harber, CIO and vice president of Information Technology for Blood Systems, who
serves as chairman of the project team, called the HL7 Special Interest Group (SIG).

 
“We believe that standardization will bring a return on investment for both blood centers and the software firms that market to them,” Mr. Harber said. “Without standardization, there would be no debit cards or online payments. Similarly, BBHL7 will make possible a host of new efficiencies and innovations.”

The SIG is composed of standards experts, blood center IT and operations personnel, and representatives of blood establishment computer software (BECS) vendors. The team receives staff and marketing support from America’s Blood Centers and has been co‐funded by the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers and Blood Systems.

The HL7 standard is the most common data exchange standard used by hospitals and clinical laboratories. BBHL7 includes trigger events, message definitions, and data structures for the blood banking donor experience (donor registration, donor identification, mini‐physical, medical history questionnaire, eligibility, phlebotomy, and product transport).  

BBHL7will enable speedy and accurate data exchanges between blood center devices and systems, and eventually between blood centers and transfusion centers, thereby reducing transfusion errors and improving patient safety. 

Extending the HL7 standard also may reduce the regulatory costs that are incurred when blood center vendors want to bring new or upgraded products to market. 

Some terms and definitions come directly from the HL7 standard used by hospitals and labs, while others came from the forerunner of the current project team. That effort began in 2000 and culminated with new hospital blood bank‐related messages, segments, and trigger events, which were accepted in version 2.5 of the HL7 Standard. 

The first project team focused on hospital‐ side blood banking needs, but no one had ever attempted to extend the standard into the donor side. Then, in 2008, America’s Blood Centers held a BECS Conference in Silver Spring, Md. One of the suggestions that came out of the conference was to establish a common interface standard for blood center software.  That led to the formation of the current HL7 SIG.

“This is a natural outgrowth of a standard that has been used in healthcare settings for three decades,” said Patti Larson, product manager at Haemonetics Software Solutions and a member of both the original project team and the current project team. Ms. Larson formerly served as director of Centralized Transfusion Services Systems at the Institute for Transfusion Medicine in Pittsburgh, Pa. 

WASHINGTON (January 11, 2011) Hospitals will be able to carefully track their use of blood products in patients, manage their inventory and compare blood use protocols against best practices through a new inventory management system being made available to the 75 independent blood centers that are members of America’s Blood Centers.

Appropriate Inventory Management (AIM) tracks blood utilization and provides patient outcome analyses through vein-to-vein monitoring of the blood products by both the hospital and the blood center. The software system was piloted by 16 America’s Blood Centers’ members in more than 340 U.S. hospitals and is based on European systems that have seen significant reductions in the number of units of blood used by hospitals.

AIM has the first and only national database of information that will allow blood centers to provide hospitals with individualized laboratory, donor and patient data; as well as local, regional and national data for benchmarking against best practices. Hospitals will be able to better manage their blood inventory and reduce waste, as well as comply with new standards mandated by the Joint Commission. AIM is made available to hospitals only through participating America’s Blood Centers’ members.

“The overriding benefit to hospitals will be having data that identifies the transfusion protocols that result in the best outcomes in patients, which is what we all strive for,” said America’s Blood Centers’ Chief Executive Officer Jim MacPherson. “At the same time, hospitals today are examining every line item in their budgets, and will welcome the cost savings that have been projected through the use of AIM, as experienced in Europe.”

“Our very early experience with AIM would indicate the reductions seen in Europe can be accomplished here,” said Dr. Patricia Fenderson, Medical Director for Texas Health Harris Methodist Fort Worth. “We all benefit when we have the information that guides best practices. However, the ultimate beneficiary here is the patient.”

AIM provides information on the availability of specific blood products, the inventory the hospital is carrying, unused or outdated units, and monitors the appropriateness of a blood transfusion. Outcomes and adverse events associated with the use of the various blood products are tracked. For example, the system can automatically monitor for transfusion associated infections or patient reactions.  

Information for obtaining the AIM system is available through America’s Blood Centers’ members.

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About America’s Blood Centers

Founded in 1962, America’s Blood Centers is North America’s largest alliance of community-based, independent blood programs. Recognized by the U.S. Congress for its critical work in patient care, service to the US military, and disaster preparedness and response, the federation operates more than 600 blood donor centers, providing nearly half of the U.S. and a quarter of the Canadian blood supply.

These blood centers serve more than 180 million people and provide blood products and services to more than 3,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities across North America. America’s Blood Centers’ U.S. members are licensed and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Canadian members are regulated by Health Canada.

Washington – (January 5, 2011) – Remington College collected 2,605 pints of blood through its 3 Lives campaign, exceeding its goal of 2,500 pints through campus blood drives in 2010.

For the 3 Lives campaign, America’s Blood Centers, Remington College and the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America partnered for a series of blood drives on every Remington campus.

The community involvement program is called 3 Lives because three lives may be saved for every one pint of blood donated. The blood drives focus on the need for minority donors – especially African Americans.

According to the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America (SCDAA), African American blood donors provide blood with unique antigens that is vital for people battling sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases. Many sickle cell patients require frequent blood transfusions and it’s best for them to receive blood that closely matches their own.

“We would like to thank everyone who made our blood drives a success in 2010,” said Jack Forrest, Remington College President and CEO. “We will continue to highlight the need for minority blood donors as we provide much-needed blood for hospitals and blood centers in the communities where our students, faculty and staff live.”

The 3 Lives effort will continue in 2011, with the goal of exceeding this year’s collection total.

For more information, call Remington College at 1-800-448-6405. 

About America’s Blood Centers

Founded in 1962, America’s Blood Centers is North America’s largest network of community-based, independent blood programs. Recognized by the U.S. Congress for its critical work in patient care and disaster preparedness and response, the federation operates more than 600 blood donor centers providing nearly half of the U.S., and a quarter of the Canadian blood supply. These blood centers serve more than 3,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities across North America. Americas Blood Centers’ U.S. members are licensed and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Canadian Members are regulated by Health Canada.

About Remington College

Remington College is a common name used by all 20 campuses of a group of affiliated companies of privately-owned, post-secondary educational institutions based in Heathrow, Florida. Through its campuses, Remington College offers diplomas, bachelor’s and associate’s degrees in a variety of fields, including: cosmetology; nursing; healthcare; criminal justice; business; electronics; information technology; and more.  Course offerings vary by campus. Remington College and its predecessor companies have been part of the higher education community since 1985. For more information, please visit http://www.remingtoncollege.edu/. For the latest news about Remington College, visit http://today.remingtoncollege.edu/