Advantages of Bloodless Medicine

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Bloodless Medicine – The Gold Standard of Care for All Bloodless Medicine – The Gold Standard of Care for All In the last 20 years, those in the medical field and the general public have become increasingly concerned with the risks connected with blood transfusions. The AIDS pandemic spurned many to worry, as did the increased risks of Hepatitis and other diseases. As early as 1996, a poll revealed that 89% of Canadians would favor an alternative to a blood transfusion (Thomas, 1998). It has also been noted that transfusions can cause various types of reactions, both allergy-related and not, that lead to extended recovery time and hospital stay. It is proven that most transfusion-related deaths occur due to receipt of blood that is incompatible to their bodies. Human error is always a factor in such treatments, and experts estimate that a unit of blood is handled by up to 17 people from the time it is donated to the time the transfusion occurs (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 2007). Due to these concerns as well as some individuals’ religious aversions to blood, many successful alternatives have been developed. Since then, bloodless medicine has proven itself to be a much better standard of care for all patients, demonstrated by the physical, ethical, and financial benefits of its alternative treatments. The majority of benefits to bloodless medicine fall in the category of physical benefits, related to the patient’s health. Other than eliminating all of the aforementioned risks associated with blood transfusions, there are many other ways in which bloodless medicine is beneficial to a patient’s health. First of all, surgeons operating without the “safety net” of a blood transfusion are more careful when operating, and take more extensive measures to diminish blood loss, including the use of such tools as electric cautery devices

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