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St. Vincent improves blood use 30% and outcomes as it decreases costs

St. Vincent, a 720-bed hospital, is part of the St. Vincent Health network, Indiana’s largest healthcare employer with 16 hospitals serving 45 counties in central Indiana. St. Vincent Health is a part of the larger Ascension Health group of hospitals, the nation’s largest nonprofit and Catholic healthcare system. The highly-respected St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana has been recognized for achievement in using evidence-based guidelines to provide the best possible care to patients through The American Heart Association’s (AHA) Get with the Guidelines program. The hospital has earned the AHA Gold Performance Achievement Award for Coronary Artery Disease for the second consecutive year by achieving at least 85 percent compliance with Get with the Guidelines measures for 24 consecutive months.

Situation:

The cost of blood products was increasing as were the already-high variable costs of transfusions while at the same time research indicated that more liberal use of blood transfusions increased the risk of complications.

Solution:

The transfusion committee was transformed to a blood utilization committee and it began to examine hospital blood utilization and management practices. The committee was charged with increasing transfusion safety through appropriate blood conservation, utilization and management, reducing costs and blood demand while also increasing blood supply.

Results:

With the help of Quality Manager, the hospital has dramatically improved its approach to blood utilization and management. By analyzing and comparing blood usage practice patterns, it has

reduced total blood use by 30 percent,
decreased iatrogenic blood loss in critical care settings by 86 percent,
documented $4.4 million in blood acquisition cost savings over five years
with an estimated $35 million in total cost savings when fully accounting for labor, supplies, and reduction in adverse events.

"The Quality Manager solution enables St. Vincent’s blood management program to take a quantum leap over standard blood utilization review processes and committees, which are often developed without regard for the realities of blood acquisition and use and are inadequate to meet real-world needs. Without administrative support from a product like Quality Manager, this program would not have been as successful"

Timothy Hannon, MD, MBA
Medical Director, Blood Management Program
St. Vincent Health System

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