Impact of Patient Blood Management (PBM) at the Schulthess Clinic A Quality Assurance and Quality Control Project in Major Orthopaedic and Spine Surgery

At the Schulthess Clinic a significant reduction of RBC's, fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and platelets transfusion could be observed between 2018 and 2022 during the stepwise introduction of PBM for all patients undergoing major orthopedic and spine surgery. RBC, FFP and PT transfusion declined by 76.3%, 73.5% and 99.2% over the 5-year period. Unfortunately however, at the moment no detailed analysis with respect to risk factors for transfusion, specific interventions or outcomes is available. The hypothesis is that the already known reduction of allogenic blood product transfusion at the Schulthess Clinic can be attributed to patients undergoing major primary joint arthroplasties, revision operations and major spine surgery. We assume that patient and procedure related risk factors over time did not significantly change while we expect a major impact of changed transfusion requirements and the stepwise PBM implementation on patient outcomes.