Comment Period Opens for Proposed Fifth Edition of Standards for a Patient Blood Management Program

November 08, 2024

The proposed draft Standards for a Patient Blood Management Program, fifth edition, is available for public comment until Jan. 8, 2025.

A  summary memo that accompanies the proposed PBM Standards provides a comprehensive description of the additions and edits in the draft. Some of the significant changes include:

Each chapter now concludes with the record retention table for those standards. AABB notes that a comprehensive record retention table still exists in Chapter 6.
Entry 13 in the activity level table is new. It requires programs to have a process ensuring that the patient and clinician discuss whether to give or withhold consent for a procedure.
Standard 5.1.11 has added the requirement to include avoiding unnecessary transfusion of patients as a part of a program’s PBM guidelines.
Standard 5.11 now includes a requirement that obstetric patients need to have their coagulation and fibrinogen status optimized to avoid clotting.

In addition, the proposed fifth edition of PBM Standards incorporates the updated quality systems essentials that form the basis for all sets of AABB standards. The updated quality systems essentials provide a one-page piece of guidance before the beginning of each of the 10 chapters. This guidance includes:

A description of the chapter and what the standards therein cover.
A list of key terms that mirror the content of the chapter and that should be kept in mind when reviewing the standards.
A list of key objectives that an assessor could look for during an onsite assessment, however, this list is not comprehensive.

Users should note that these are not requirements that members will be held against. Rather, they are tools to assist users in their understanding of the content of the chapter.

The Patient Blood Management Standards Committee encourages all interested individuals to submit comments in the next 60 days. The standards in the fifth edition are in the proposed phase and will be finalized after the comment period has concluded. The committee will review all comments submitted and provide a summary document that describes the committee’s rationale for its final decisions.