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Providing bloodless care to patients is simply
providing medical care without giving patients
blood donated by another person.
The way we do this is to conserve blood by reducing or
eliminating bleeding, by stimulating the body
to make its own blood cells at an accelerated rate.
And also by recycling blood that patients lose during surgery,
and giving them back their own blood.
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Well, there are several reasons why patients may choose
a bloodless approach to their surgery.
Historically, patients have elected to avoid transfusion
because of religious reasons, but also, some patients just
simply wish to avoid the risk or the side effects of transfusion.
For example, we know that patients treated with
the bloodless methods have a shorter length of stay,
decreased incidence of hospital acquired infections, and
also a less chance of an allergic reaction, or
even receiving the wrong unit of blood, which still occurs.
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The first thing we do is we diagnose or treat anemia prior
to surgery, so patients come to the operating room with
enough red blood cells so they can tolerate any blood loss.
During surgery, we can avoid hypothermia or
hypertension, both of which can increase bleeding.
And then we can collect and
recycle the blood they lose, using the cell saver, and
give them back their own blood during surgery.
We can also use what we call ANH,
Acute Normovolemic Hemodilution, which is where we bank
the patient’s own blood at the beginning of the case, and
give it back to them at the end of the case.
There's one more technique.
There's new versions of electrocautery that have come
out recently that can dramatically decrease bleeding
during orthopedic cases and during spine surgery, for
example.
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Virtually, 99% of all the procedures we do can be
performed without transfusion.
For example, we've done some really big surgeries,
like a Whipple for pancreatic cancer,
we've done many of those without transfusions.
We've done open heart surgeries,
even revision open heart surgeries,
for valve replacements and bypass surgery without blood.
And recently, we even did a six kilogram baby.
That's about a 14 pound baby,
who had open heart surgery for tetralogy of fallot,
requiring cardiopulmonary bypass without a transfusion.
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We believe that we offer more different types of specialty
care than any other hospital in the country that has a bloodless
program.
Plus, our program blends seamlessly into the care plan
that's offered by all varieties of specialties within
the hospital.
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Surgery itself is becoming less and less invasive.
For example, the laparoscopic and
robotic approach to different surgeries have dramatically
decreased the amount of blood that patients lose and
the amount of transfusions they require.
Also, we're giving new, intravenous medications,
like iron, or we're even giving erythropoietin,
which is one of the medications that the professional cyclists
use to blood dope.
Only now, we're giving it legally to our patients to build
their blood counts prior to surgery.
So they don't require a transfusion.
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