Blood transfusion is a crucial aspect of medical care that saves millions of lives every year. Every day, people from all over the world require this procedure during surgery, after an injury, due to severe anemia or pregnancy complications (Neoh et al., 2019). It is worth noting that safe blood transfusion should be based on the use of evidence-based approaches and technologies in blood processing and testing. Therefore, it is critical to explore this problem and study the determinants that can impact patient outcomes. This paper aims to identify factors that can affect physicians’ decision-making regarding blood transfusion.
Overall, factors that impact clinicians’ decisions with regard to blood transfusion include clinical and social characteristics. According to Turgeon et al. (2019), clinical determinants are the patient’s medical condition, the injury’s significance and location, comorbidities, and neurological events. Such factors are considered from the medical perspective to evaluate their impact on patient health (Yao et al., 2019). Social characteristics include the wishes of the affected individual, the interaction with the patient’s family members, and collaboration with other health care specialists (Turgeon et al., 2019). Physicians’ decisions can be affected by these determinants since communication with patients, family, and healthcare personnel provides a comprehensive perspective on the issue.
Another critical factor is the opinion of the whole team involved in patient care. Furthermore, physicians consider their experience, clinical findings, current evidence in the existing literature, and prognosis for the patient (Steffen et al., 2021). It is essential to implement evidence-based methods and comply with guidelines to ensure positive patient outcomes (Piili et al., 2018). Overall, clinicians’ decision-making for blood transfusion is based on a number of factors whose combination allows for a comprehensive view of the problem.
References
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Piili, R. P., Lehto, J. T., Luukkaala, T., Hinkka, H., & Kellokumpu-Lehtinen, P. L. I. (2018). Does special education in palliative medicine make a difference in end-of-life decision-making? BMC Palliative Care, 17(1), 1-11. Web.
Steffen, K. M., Spinella, P. C., Holdsworth, L. M., Ford, M. A., Lee, G. M., Asch, S. M., Proctor, E. K., & Doctor, A. (2021). Factors influencing implementation of blood transfusion recommendations in pediatric critical care units. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 9, 1-9. Web.
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Yao, Y., Cifuentes, J., Zheng, B., & Yan, M. (2019). Computer algorithm can match physicians’ decisions about blood transfusions. Journal of Translational Medicine, 17(1), 1-5. Web.