Morning admission to the hospital for surgery the same day

Abstract

Morning admissions for surgery the same day are increasing because of economic incentives. These admissions permit less time for red cell serologic preparation before surgery than do the more conventional methods of patient admission. During a 4-month period, serologic problems arose in 70 of 2859 cases. In 36 of the 70 cases, the sample arrived at the blood bank about the time of the beginning of the operation; in 19 of these 36 cases, the operation had begun before serologic resolution, and in 7 of these 19, the antibody was found to be of hemolytic potential. It was concluded that administrative and logistic changes need to be made to ensure sufficient time for the serologic testing necessary for safe transfusion support for same-day surgical admissions.