SUMMER 2017
ISSUE
The Society for the Advancement of Blood Management (SABM)
invites healthcare organizations worldwide to participate in this week dedicated to educating patients and healthcare professionals about patient blood management.
Download SABM's
Patient Blood Management Awareness Week 2017
Poster and Timeline
Please consider making a donation to your Society. Your donations will help us to improve the lives of people throughout the world through Patient Blood Management.
SABM 2017 Newsletter Publication Schedule
February | May | August | November
Editor
Carolyn Burns, MD
Associate Editor
Tiffany Hall, RN
Contributors
Carolyn Burns, MD
Nabil Hassan, MD
Tiffany Hall, RN
Mary Ann O’Brien RN, MSN, CCRN, CNE
Becky Rock, RN
Kevin Wright
Zac Zahara, MBA and team
Transition Director
Sherri Ozawa, RN
SABM Officers and
Directors
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Letter from the President
The President's Corner: What we know and what we don't.
Dear SABM colleagues:
It is hard to believe that it is already summer and just around the corner will be September when we meet face-to -face again. It is time for our 2017 Annual Meeting, the largest gathering of PBM experts and advocates. This is THE opportunity to share cutting edge information, explore new technologies, where both the expert and the novice can generate ideas and forge collaboration.
One important issue for our consideration is the use of transfusion thresholds. Of course, the decision to transfuse a patient is not always simple. It depends greatly on patient acuity, diagnoses, background health and age. Transfusion thresholds have been explored in adults with various illnesses and under several care circumstances. Many of these studies have been addressed at past annual meetings. However, the same cannot be said about the pediatric population. In this arena, there are few studies—all with a small number of patients. Most important is the difference from the adult studies: pediatric data has been derived from either retrospective or non-inferiority investigations, and ethically none could have had a true no-transfusion group.
Nonetheless, the need for a tool to guide decision-making is sorely needed. This need triggered a young bright investigator to tackle the difficult task of gathering more than 30 international experts to create a consensus statement on transfusion guidelines in critically-ill pediatric patients. The group included pediatric critical care, hematology, transfusion medicine, oncology, methodology, and evidence-based medicine experts. The idea garnered enough traction to attract an National Institutes of Health (NIH) starter grant as well as our SABM/Haemonetics grant in 2016.
After two years of hard work, extensive literature review, and three face-to-face meetings, the group’s task is near completion. Recommendations are undergoing final review. On behalf of this working group, and in keeping with the Annual Meeting theme of Rising to the Summit, I have invited Dr. Stacey Valentine, a pediatric critical care specialist at the University of Massachusetts, to present these recommendations in a plenary session. The recommendations will reflect the current evidence-based information available and, more importantly, highlights vast gaps in knowledge that we hope will trigger additional investigation. By identifying unmet needs, SABM also hopes that granting agencies understand the need for support, thus paving the way for many investigators to pursue study of this unique population of patients, our infants and children.
In summary: identifying what we do not know sometimes is more important than what we do.
Hope to see many of you soon.
Nabil Hassan, MD
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Save the Date for SABM's Annual Meeting
September 7 – 9, 2017
Hilton & Executive Tower
Portland, Oregon
PBM Certificate Course
September 6, 2017
7:00am – 6:00pm
Annual Meeting
September 7 – 9, 2017
Join SABM's Call to Action for Medicare to Expand Coverage for Treatment of Anemia!
Click HERE for detailed information about what you can do to get involved.
©2017 Society for the Advancement of Blood Management
350 Engle Street
Englewood, NJ 07631
Phone: (928) 551-6400
Fax: (877) 944-2272
EMAIL: [email protected]
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