Background: Approximately 15% of patients with cancer require transfusion for treatment of disease- or chemotherapy-induced anemia. Previous studies have shown that anemia adversely affects patient quality of life (QoL), but QoL significant improves with transfusion. At the BVAMC, providers noted increasing delays in outpatient transfusion access averaging 2-3 days, resulting in prolongation of patient symptom burden (Plan). Additionally, outpatient transfusion is associated with significant patient time burden, patient travel burden, and health care cost, so delay in transfusion delivery also exacerbates these challenges.
Intervention: We created a process map for outpatient transfusion (Do). We learned that if a patient requires same-day transfusion, the patient must be admitted, resulting in a minimum cost of $3000 for a 24-hour hospitalization. We also learned that the outpatient infusion clinic is performing an increasing number of transfusions and non-transfusion related clinical services for other subspecialties, specifically infusion of iron, intravenous immunoglobulin, and biologic medications (i.e. infliximab, tocilizumab). There was a 2.6- times increase in blood transfusions per year since 2013 (78 to 205 units of pack red cells), possibly due to improved oncologic therapies prolonging patient survival. Furthermore, there was a 2-times increase in patient encounters for iron infusions (463 to 923) and a 1.4-times increase for biologics (876 to 1248) since 2010. This significantly increased demand has resulted in limited infusion chair access, precluding same-day transfusion availability (Study).
Outcome: The repercussions of decreased same-day transfusion access was presented to BVAMC administration. New space has been made available for seven additional chairs with transfusion capability. Iron infusions have been moved to the Hematology/Oncology chemotherapy center to increase ease of access, with a plan to move most transfusion to this space as well (Act). We project that access to same-day transfusion will avoid 2 hospitalizations per month at an annual cost of $72,000.
Implications: Access to same-day transfusion for treatment of anemia in patients with cancer decreases patient symptom and time burden and also results in cost savings. We encourage other facilities to explore their infusion space utilization, as demands will likely increase with growing use of intravenous therapies across specialties.
