Bank blood shortage, transfusion containment and viscoelastic point-of-care coagulation testing in cardiac surgery

In January 2017, many Italian hospitals (including my own institution) were forced to reduce the number of major surgical operations because of a severe shortage of packed red blood cells (RBCs). Blood banks warned that donors with blood group O (both O+ and O–) were scarce, and imposed that units of RBCs of this group were to be reserved for non-postponable major surgeries. Subsequently, other blood groups were affected by the shortage. On January 12, 2017 the National Blood Center warned that about 2600 RBC units were lacking in nine Italian regions. This emergency, resulting from the combination of Christmas holidays and an outbreak of influenza, came to an end by the end of January.

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