Transfusion Medicine Boot Camp for Nurses

Donna Berta, IA, BScN, coordonnatrice de projets cliniques – Soins infirmiers, RRoCS

Background
ORBCoN’s annual educational event, Transfusion Medicine Boot Camp for Nurses, originated in 2018. The intent is to foster transfusion knowledge and skills for nurses (broadened to transfusionists, health care professionals administering blood) to ensure blood is administered safely to patients. A volunteer working group comprised of a transfusion medicine physician, a transfusion safety nurse, clinical nurse educators, a patient blood management coordinator, and ORBCoN staff organize the event. Year over year attendee feedback has guided the event’s format and program content.

A consistently requested feature has been interactive learning. Speakers are obliged to employ pre/post transfusion knowledge questions (polling the attendees prior to the presentation, providing the answer information during their presentation, and repeat polling the attendees following the presentation with review of the correct answers). As well, speakers are encouraged to provide patient case-based sessions with additional polling questions to support critical thinking and problem solving.

Programme de 2022
Le 23 novembre dernier, une séance de formation virtuelle de trois heures a été offerte gratuitement aux personnes qui s’y étaient inscrites (inscription obligatoire pour des raisons de sécurité). Le programme offrait des séances plénières inspirées des lignes directrices en transfusion/administration du sang et des réactions transfusionnelles suivies de séances simultanées portant sur des sujets d’actualité en médecine transfusionnelle. Voici les sujets abordés dans les séances :

Plénières

RBC Transfusions: Historical versus Best Practices
Documenting Transfusion: Dotting the i’s, Crossing the t’s
Transfusion Associated Circulatory Overload (TACO) Clinical Perspectives

Séances simultanées

Massive Hemorrhage Protocol – Adults
Massive Hemorrhage Protocol – Paediatrics
All About Anemia and Iron

All sessions were recorded and posted to the ORBCoN website. Session can be viewed at https://transfusionontario.org/category/orbcon-resources/presentation-library/transfusion-medicine-boot-camp-for-nurses/.

Participation en 2022
Sept-cent-quatre-vingt-sept (787) personnes se sont inscrites à l’activité. Elles provenaient surtout de l’Ontario alors que 5,6 % des inscriptions provenaient de l’extérieur de l’Ontario, dont cinq (5) de l’extérieur du pays.

Les fonctions des personnes inscrites sont résumées à la Figure 1; plus précisément :

68 % front line nursing care provider (registered nurse, registered practical nurse, nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist, patient blood management coordinator)
22 % providing transfusion education (clinical nurse educator, nursing professional practice, transfusion safety nurse/officer)
10 % other (laboratory staff [technologists], manager, perfusionist, respiratory therapist, anesthesia assistant, physician, university/ college faculty, student, clinical informatics)

2022 Outcomes
Attendees provided their feedback via the evaluation survey which demonstrated:
overall appraisal: 80% excellent, 19% good after attending this event, my practice will change: 80% yes
future considerations: additional time allocated to attendee questions, more patient scenarios and polling questions, demonstrations of administration practices and equipment, provide education more than once a year potential topics of interest: IVIG, ABO Rh compatibility and antibodies, pediatrics and neonates, transfusion reactions (signs and symptoms, medications to treat)

Et l’avenir?
D’après les commentaires des années précédentes (réitérés en 2022), la formation continue sur l’administration sûre du sang est à la fois nécessaire et bienvenue. C’est pourquoi le RRoCS mettra sur pied des séances trimestrielles interactives destinées aux transfusionnistes (Transfusionists Talk – Transfusion Made Bloody Easy). L’annonce qui figure dans ce bulletin vous fournira plus d’information à ce sujet.

From ORBCoN Crew

TM New Year’s Resolution

A New Year is upon us and with the New Year comes time for new beginnings. New beginnings bring to mind resolutions and TM departments are always striving to improve their services which is what resolutions are all about!
ORBCoN would like to suggest some New Year’s resolutions for your TM department. These are based on the top Accreditation Canada Diagnostic non-conformances that were noticed from the previous year

This year Transfusion Medicine resolves to:
WANT: Have a training program and competency assessment process that is evaluated for its effectiveness for all personnel involved in the administration of blood products including physicians, nurses, and laboratory personnel, that will consider the complexity of tasks and potential for error.
NEED: Equipment that have the capacity to monitor the temperature range of the contents, can be set at the acceptable temperature range for the products stored inside and have an audible alarm when temperatures go beyond the acceptable range.
SHARE: Procedures for the return of products from a clinical area that take into consideration all possible products that can be issued, not only red blood cell units.
SUCCEED: Establish a comprehensive home infusion process that includes all necessary elements such as identification of person picking-up the product, redistribution of products near expiry, safety precautions, sources of variability, and follow up for transfusion complications.

Newsboard

Tech Assessment

The Bloody Easy Technologist Assessment program is now available on the new ORBCoN Learning Management System (LMS) and Surge Learning platforms.
A communication has been issued with instructions to provide site administrator information for access to the ORBCoN LMS and guidance for current Surge Learning clients.
If you have any questions or have not received the communication please reach out to alison.wendt@sunnybrook.ca