The Importance of Digital Footprinting in Clinical Transfusion Medicine

Clerical errors and patient misidentification are major concerns and common mishaps in clinical transfusion medicine. These are in principle avoidable human errors and consequent harm. As part of risk management, the introduction of a digital footprint in transfusion medicine from vein-to-vein supported in its operation by radio frequency identification (RFID) could prevent these clerical errors and misidentifications and therefore improve on transfusion medicine practice in patient care. In patient treatment and care digital footprinting is part of the vein-to-vein chain of events and needs to be developed in the manufacturing part as well from the selection of source material human blood till the delivery of finished blood products at the health care facility. This chapter analyses and describes the various aspects related to digital footprinting in transfusion medicine and in particular in the clinical part of transfusion medicine.