Blood School.

Objectives: To describe and evaluate a laboratory-based nursing education activity on transfusion to improve patient safety, an often-neglected opportunity.

Methods: Our transfusion service developed a day-long "Blood School" to provide knowledge, skills, and behaviors to nurses in four aspects of transfusion: blood ordering, sample collection, transfusion procedures, and recognition and reporting of transfusion reactions. We collected survey data on methods and effects of training and hard data on the number of reported patient safety events.

Conducting a multidisciplinary morbidity and mortality conference in the trauma-surgical intensive care unit.

The trauma-surgical intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center has developed a multidisciplinary case review process to allow discussion of complications and issues in an open forum among multiple services. Conducted monthly, this meeting provides a forum for clear communication between members of the patient care team with the goal of developing best practices, system changes, and policies that will minimize risk for the patients and provide education for the staff.