Transfusion Medicine

The Department of Blood Transfusion of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University was established as a blood bank when the hospital was founded in 1954, and became an independent department—the Department of Blood Transfusion—in 1987. The Department of Blood Transfusion is an important department closely linked to clinical care, integrating blood resource planning, blood reserves, laboratory testing, clinical blood use management, blood therapy, teaching, and research. The department currently has 15 professional and technical staff members, including 5 physicians and 10 technicians. Of these, 4 hold senior-level professional titles, 2 hold intermediate-level professional titles, and 9 hold junior-level professional titles. The department undertakes clinical teaching as well as the study and training of trainees undertaking further education. In recent years, the department has undertaken 4 provincial- and university-level research projects, published more than 10 SCI papers, introduced 3 new technologies, and contributed to 4 monographs.

The Department of Blood Transfusion currently has a specimen receiving room, blood issuing room, transfusion compatibility testing laboratory, blood collection room, blood storage room, blood receiving room, records room, duty room, conference room, and other functional rooms. Its main instruments and equipment include: dedicated blood storage refrigerators, a platelet agitator, a multipurpose centrifuge for blood group serology, an FYQ-type immunological microcolumn incubator, centrifuges, a digital-display constant-temperature water bath, a blood component separator, a fully automatic thromboelastography analyzer, a microscope, an autologous blood salvage machine, and others. It is equipped with a cold-chain temperature-control system to ensure the safety of blood storage. Blood components supplied for clinical use include: leukocyte-reduced red blood cell suspension, washed red blood cell suspension, leukocyte-reduced red blood cell suspension (irradiated blood), leukocyte-reduced platelets, frozen plasma, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitated coagulation factors, Rh-negative leukocyte-reduced red blood cell suspension, COVID-19 convalescent plasma, and others. The main services currently provided include: ABO (forward and reverse) blood typing, Rh blood typing, screening and identification of irregular antibodies, card-method crossmatching, saline crossmatching, Polybrene crossmatching and difficult crossmatching, antiglobulin testing, thromboelastography testing, autologous transfusion, collection and preparation of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), blood lipid removal, and others. The department participates in the National External Quality Assessment activities for clinical laboratories and has achieved excellent results.

The main functions of the Department of Blood Transfusion are to standardize transfusion management, ensure the quality of clinical transfusion services, promote the stable and sustained development of transfusion services, and ensure the scientific, safe, and effective use of blood in clinical practice. Transfusion safety is the department’s enduring work theme. The Department of Blood Transfusion firmly upholds the mission that “quality is life,” providing safe, timely, and effective services to clinical departments 24 hours a day, offering patients and their families year-round consultation on transfusion-related matters, actively promoting the public-welfare cause of voluntary blood donation, and participating in discussions and consultations on difficult clinical cases. It guides and supervises the scientific and rational use of blood in clinical practice and ensures the safety of clinical blood use.