Publications by authors named "Deborah Lauzon"
Background: Benchmarking is a quality improvement tool that compares an organization's performance to that of its peers for selected indicators, to improve practice.
Study Design And Methods: Processes to develop evidence-based benchmarks for red blood cell (RBC) outdating in Ontario hospitals, based on RBC hospital disposition data from Canadian Blood Services, have been previously reported. These benchmarks were implemented in 160 hospitals provincewide with a multifaceted approach, which included hospital education, inventory management tools and resources, summaries of best practice recommendations, recognition of high-performing sites, and audit tools on the Transfusion Ontario website (http://transfusionontario.
Background: Frozen plasma (FP) is frequently transfused inappropriately, an intervention that results in risk without benefit for the patient. To better understand current utilization practices in our region, we undertook a provincewide prospective audit to evaluate the clinical indications and appropriateness of FP transfusion.
Study Design And Methods: All hospitals in the Canadian province of Ontario with transfusion medicine services were invited to participate in a 5-day audit of FP utilization.
Background: Benchmarking is a useful tool to identify best practices and to compare an organization's performance with that of similar peers, allowing for continuous quality improvement. In this study, a provincial database of red blood cell (RBC) product inventory/disposition in hospitals was analyzed to identify factors that affected RBC outdates and to systematically establish optimal target levels for RBC outdates.
Study Design And Methods: RBC inventory/disposition data for a 21-month period from 156 hospitals were analyzed using logistic regression techniques to identify factors that affected RBC outdating (month of the year, distance from the blood supplier, monthly transfusion activity, hospital type, and provincial region).