Transfusion Support for a New Adult Level 1 Trauma Center: Evolution of a Blood Bank

The University of Chicago Medicine (UCM) established a novel blood bank to complement its Level 1 trauma center. The blood bank with the support of the newly formed Section of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery developed a new massive transfusion protocol (MTP), improved staffing and created operational innovations to efficiently deliver blood products to acutely injured adult trauma patients. The improvements included updating the contents of the MTP “pack” to reflect a 1:1:1 ratio of packed red blood cells, plasma and platelets modeling current evidence-based practices. Other innovations included creating a blood bank runner system to utilize existing unit staff to assist in efficient blood product delivery and creating a new multi-compartment MTP cooler to minimize blood product waste. The UCM trauma center also adopted liberal implementation of whole blood resuscitation. These efforts resulted in the successful delivery of 94% of blood products within 5 minutes of ordering and a less than 1% blood product wastage. Such processes and blood bank innovations may serve as a template for other centers building or expanding their trauma blood banks.