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Background: Transfusion safety officers (TSO) function as liaisons between the blood bank and clinical staff, utilizing audits, quality improvement, reviews, communication, education, and general vigilance to enhance transfusion safety. While hospitals in Europe and Canada have long employed TSOs, a majority of institutions in the United States (US) have yet to implement this resource, despite the mounting evidence to support their effectiveness., Study Design and Methods: An anonymous 20-question survey was administered to 104 hospitals with valid email contact information. Survey questions addressed the presence of a TSO, characteristics, backgrounds, and education of TSOs, the reporting and funding structure of the position, and role responsibilities., Results: 53 responses were received, with 52 surveys completed (51 % response rate). The majority of responding institutions have a patient blood management (PBM) program (n = 40, 77 %) and 33 (63 %) have at least 1 TSO. 61 % of TSOs report an educational background in nursing, with 11 additional unique training backgrounds identified. TSO responsibilities are varied and include quality improvement, education, transfusion safety event analysis, and participation in PBM initiatives. Barriers to implementing a TSO position include lack of resources, financial impediments, and a lack of understanding of the position and its value by administrators and clinicians., Discussion: The results of this survey highlight how TSOs contribute to transfusion safety and PBM and may provide guidance to hospitals interested in implementing a TSO position. It also elucidates the range of TSO responsibilities and approaches that institutions utilize to advocate for, and implement, this position in the US., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: United States healthcare spending continues to outpace other developed nations although efforts are being made to increase cost-transparency. Recent legislation requires hospitals to publish a chargemaster, a list of all billable procedure codes together with prices. Chargemaster prices have been shown to be highly variable, if available, and are not typically paid, but contribute to negotiated rates. Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is performed for a limited number of indications and could serve as a marker of this variability. We investigated the availability of chargemaster documentation for ECP procedures and the variability of pricing as assessed by institutional characteristics., Study Design and Methods: A list of centers with photopheresis systems was obtained from the device manufacturer and the institutional websites were analyzed for chargemaster list prices. Multivariate linear regressions were performed to compare impact of facility variables on chargemaster pricing., Results: There are 139 locations in the US which are listed as referral centers for ECP; and chargemaster prices were available in 66.2% of these centers. The range was $571.48-183,452.00, maximum price 321 times greater than minimum, and the median price, after outlier exclusion, was $8989.06 (SD = $4361.72). ECP cost did not correlate with hospital size, facility type, ownership, number of hospitals in the referral region, hospital care intensity index, academic status, or region (p ≥ .05)., Conclusions: Chargemaster costs for ECP procedures are highly variable and nonuniform, and the current data available for patients undergoing these specialized apheresis procedures is insufficient to afford patients the ability to compare prices., (© 2021 AABB.)

Background: Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the transfusion medicine community has experienced unprecedented blood supply shortages since March 2020. As such, numerous changes to everyday practice have occurred with a specific emphasis on blood conservation. We sought to determine the strategies used to mitigate blood shortages and promote blood conservation during the pandemic., Methods: An anonymous, 37-question survey was developed using Research Electronic Data Capture and distributed via e-mail to transfusion medicine specialists across the US obtained via publicly available databases., Results: Amongst surveyed [41.1% response rate (51/124 institutions)], 98.0% experienced a product shortage, with the greatest number reporting red blood cell (RBC) shortages (92.0%). This led to 35.3% of institutions altering the composition and/or number of blood product suppliers, including a 100% increase in the number of institutions acquiring blood from organizations that connect hospital transfusion services with blood collection centers (e.g., Blood Buy) compared to before March 2020. Prospective triaging of blood products was the most common blood conservation strategy (68.1%), though 35.4% altered their RBC exchange or transfusion program for patients receiving chronic RBC transfusion/exchange. As a result of these changes, 78.6% of institutions reported that these changes resulted in a reduction in blood product usage, and 38.1% reported a decrease in product wastage., Conclusions: Most hospitals experienced the effects of the supply shortage, and many of them implemented blood conserving measures. Conservation strategies were associated with decreased blood utilization and waste, and future studies could evaluate whether these changes persist., (© 2022 AABB.)

Star-forming galaxies trace cosmic history. Recent observational progress with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope has led to the discovery and study of the earliest known galaxies, which correspond to a period when the Universe was only ∼800 million years old. Intense ultraviolet radiation from these early galaxies probably induced a major event in cosmic history: the reionization of intergalactic hydrogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After several decades of planning, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched in 1990 as the first of NASA’s Great Observatories. After a rocky start arising from an error in the fabrication of its main mirror, it went on to change forever many fields of astronomy, and to capture the public’s imagination with its images. An ongoing programme of servicing missions has kept the telescope on the cutting edge of astronomical research. Here I review the advances made possible by the HST over the past 18 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]