Report on Ontario Blood Shortage Simulation Exercise

Transfusion Ontario has released the Ontario Blood Shortage Simulation Exercise Final Report.

The Ontario Contingency Plan for the Management of Blood Product Shortages was released to all hospitals in January, 2008. The toolkit was sent to all CEO's and Medical Directors of the transfusion services. This toolkit was prepared to aid hospital transfusion services in their planning for a blood shortage. The plans from the United Kingdom and Nova Scotia were used to develop this toolkit.

A mock exercise of 27 hospitals of various size and complexities were chosen to be part of the pilot that was undertaken in March 2010.This exercise was a collaboration of the Working Group of the Ontario Blood Advisory Committee, Ontario Regional Blood Coordinating Network and Blood Programs Coordinating Office and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario. The findings and recommendations of the report are provided herein.