Transfusion Medicine

The Department of Blood Transfusion of Shandong Provincial Hospital was founded in 1995. Its predecessor was the blood bank of the Department of Laboratory Medicine. After nearly three decades of construction and development, it has become a comprehensive secondary-level clinical department integrating blood storage and supply, transfusion testing, transfusion therapy, and teaching and research, and it enjoys significant academic influence in the field. It is the chair or vice-chair institution of a number of provincial professional societies, including the Clinical Transfusion Branch of the Shandong Medical Doctor Association, the Clinical Transfusion Branch of the Shandong Medical Association, and the Shandong Provincial Clinical Transfusion Quality Control Center.

The department has a well-configured talent echelon and outstanding professional competence. It currently has 28 professional and technical staff, including 2 with full senior professional title qualification, 7 with associate senior professional title qualification, and 19 with intermediate or junior professional title qualification. In terms of educational background, there are 8 doctoral degree holders, 8 master's degree holders, and 12 bachelor's degree holders, forming a highly educated and highly qualified professional technical team that provides solid talent support for all the work of the department.

The department has a well-developed layout and consists of two divisions, the Central Campus and the Aoti Campus, with a total area of more than 1,700 square metres and advanced, fully equipped facilities. It currently has more than 50 pieces of professional equipment, including dedicated blood storage refrigerators, low-temperature freezers, plasma thawing machines, platelet oscillating storage cabinets, cross-matching centrifuges, fully automated blood group analysers, thromboelastography analysers, and blood cell apheresis separators. An intelligent transfusion management system is used for full-process blood management, and a 24-hour professional cold-chain monitoring system safeguards the quality and safety of blood storage, transport, and use in all respects.

As the core department safeguarding clinical blood use, the Department of Blood Transfusion provides uninterrupted 24-hour clinical blood supply services to the entire hospital. It routinely carries out ABO and RhD blood group identification, polybrene and microcolumn cross-matching tests, irregular antibody screening and identification, clinical application of thromboelastography, continuous dynamic counting multiparameter platelet function testing, prenatal examination for maternal-fetal blood group incompatibility, neonatal haemolytic disease testing, blood group antibody titre determination, difficult cross-matching, difficult blood group identification, and rare blood group identification, precisely meeting the routine and complex transfusion testing needs of clinical practice.

In the field of transfusion therapy, the department has cultivated distinctive technical applications. It carries out autologous transfusion (whole blood collection, platelet apheresis), therapeutic blood component depletion (plasma exchange, lymphoplasma exchange, semi-whole blood exchange, whole blood exchange, red cell depletion, white cell depletion, and platelet depletion), preoperative protective platelet apheresis, stem cell collection / mononuclear cell collection, and PRP collection and preparation. The annual treatment volume currently exceeds 600 case-sessions, providing individualised and precise treatment plans for the transfusion therapy of various clinical diseases and helping to improve clinical treatment outcomes.

At the same time, the Department of Blood Transfusion also participates in hospital-wide discussions of difficult cases and in clinical consultations on transfusion cases.

The department has always upheld the concept of safe, scientific, and rational blood use and vigorously promotes component transfusion and autologous transfusion techniques. At present, annual blood use is approximately 45,000 units of red blood cells and approximately 7 million millilitres of plasma. While guaranteeing clinical blood demand, it has achieved a continuous year-on-year decline in per capita blood use, effectively improving the efficiency of blood resource utilisation.

In academic, research, and teaching terms, the department continuously strengthens external exchanges and technological innovation. Over the past ten years it has undertaken 6 provincial and departmental research projects, published more than 50 papers in core journals (including 11 SCI papers published as first author and corresponding author), and obtained 2 patents. It has participated in the compilation of 6 monographs, received 4 provincial science and technology awards, and discovered 2 novel gene mutations and completed NCBI registration.

It also undertakes clinical teaching for medical students and teaching tasks such as refresher physicians, interns, base rotation physicians, trainees from primary-level hospitals, and standardised residency training. Through regular case analysis and professional study, it improves trainees' practical technical skills and trains a large number of outstanding transfusion professionals for the field.

The department currently has 1 standing committee member of the Transfusion Department Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, and a number of staff members holding core positions such as chair, vice-chair, and executive director in provincial societies and associations including the Shandong Medical Association and the Shandong Medical Doctor Association, together with more than 30 committee members of societies and associations, extending its academic influence throughout the province.

The department attaches great importance to standardised management and has formulated comprehensive management systems and workflows. Through solid management work and outstanding professional performance it has repeatedly received commendations: in 2005 it was rated by the hospital as an "Advanced Department in Safety Management"; in 2009 and 2011 it was consecutively rated as an "Advanced Collective in Clinical Blood Transfusion" by the Provincial Health Department, the Provincial Red Cross Society, and the Health Department of the Joint Logistics Department of the Jinan Military Region; and in 2021 it was rated as a hospital-level "Demonstration Department for Medical Quality Management".

In the future, the Department of Blood Transfusion will continue to take patients as the centre and clinical needs as the orientation, continuously improve its technical level and service capacity, and steadily refine its systems for blood supply guarantee, transfusion testing, and transfusion therapy, so as to provide more professional and efficient transfusion technical support for clinical departments and to safeguard the life and health of the many patients.