Transfusion medicine is the branch of medicine concerned with the transfusion of blood and blood components. The blood bank is the section of the clinical laboratory where medical technologists process and distribute blood products under the supervision of a medical director.
The UC Health Clinical Laboratory blood bank services supply all blood components 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the UC Health level one trauma center. The highly skilled and dedicated staff is committed to patient care and responsible for providing the services to various other departments like vascular surgery, high risk obstetrics and transplantation. All the pre-transfusion testing is done here and the tests performed include ABO and Rh grouping, antibody detection and identification, cross matching, RBC antigen detection, direct Coombs fetal screen, antibody titers, elution, sickle cell screen, and transfusion reaction work up. The ultimate goal is to provide adequate amounts of safe blood and blood components in a timely manner for all patients.
The service is accredited by College of American Pathologist (CAP) and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organization (JCAHO). It participates both in internal competency and external quality assurance program provided by CAP.
Under the supervision of the medical director of transfusion services, the transfusion medicine fellows participate in the day to day activities of the blood bank including inventory management, monitoring blood products issued during massive transfusions, neonatal and intrauterine transfusion, working up of transfusion reactions, antibody workup, etc. The staff also teaches residents and medical students rotating through the blood bank.