Recommendations

The 2013 report made 10 recommendations. Nine of these recommendations remain relevant in this report and one has been amended. The ninth recommendation of 'Conduct a scoping exercise for a national haemovigilance system' has been completed and the Strategic Framework for the National Haemovigilance Program was the result of this exercise. The NBA and HAC have developed a three-year Haemovigilance Action Plan 2013–16 to guide the implementation of the recommendations in the following areas.

National blood quality and safety initiatives

1. Promote the recognition and management of transfusion-related adverse events.
2. Implement programs at the national, state and local hospital levels to improve reporting of serious adverse events.

Reducing human errors

3. Compliance by clinical staff with national guidelines on sample collection and administration of blood and blood products.
4. Promote the application of technological adjuncts such as portable barcode readers and/or radio-frequency identification scanners to reduce the scope for error.
5. Develop tools to encourage alignment of prescribing practice with clinical guidelines.

Data standards

6. Review and re-develop the Australian National Haemovigilance Data Dictionary.
7. Provide tools for hospitals on the application of the Australian National Haemovigilance Data Dictionary and reporting of haemovigilance data.
8. Continue to include donor vigilance data in national haemovigilance reporting.

Reporting capacity

9. Implement the Strategic Framework for the National Haemovigilance Program.
10. Maintain and improve existing capacities for haemovigilance data reporting.