Principle:
The physician on-call for the blood bank requires a certain minimum amount of data to determine the significance of a suspected transfusion reaction and to decide if further testing is required.
Policy:
- DO NOT call the transfusion physician about a transfusion reaction until the following data is ready:
- Patient name and hospital number
- Patient age and diagnosis and location
- Previous transfusion history including antibodies and previous transfusion reactions
- Vital signs (BP, temperature, pulse, and respiratory rate) before AND after the transfusion
- Clinical symptoms (e.g. fever, chills, rash, urticaria, dyspnea, hematuria, etc.)
- Repeat ABO and D type on the post-transfusion specimen
- Direct antiglobulin/Coombs test (DAT) on the post-transfusion specimen
- DAT on the pretransfusion specimen if the post-transfusion specimen is DAT-positive
- Results of hemolysis check on pre- and post-transfusion plasma/serum
- The transfusion physician may order additional testing based on the above results.