Blood products are a cornerstone of modern veterinary medicine, enabling life-saving interventions for countless patients. However, this vital resource is finite, and its availability is often precarious. In modern clinical practice, transfusion safety and resource sustainability are interdependent: clinical adverse events directly impact product demand, while fragmented inventory storage leads to avoidable spoilage and acute shortages. It is time for a paradigm shift in our approach to blood product management, moving from a reactive to a proactive model of stewardship and sustainability.

This session with Dr. Meghan Respess, DVM, DACVECC, proposes a unified framework bridging clinical hemovigilance (systematic surveillance of adverse transfusion events from donor collection to recipient follow-up) with centralized, data-driven inventory management. A central theme will be the feasibility of implementing innovative inventory management solutions. Attendees will learn how tracking quality metrics such as Waste as a Percentage of Issued and strict blood product stewardship safeguards donor welfare, ensures patient safety, and stabilizes hospital blood supply chains. This data-driven approach will support the exploration of centralized inventory systems and the creation of robust networks for inter-hospital redistribution of products from low-use to high-use facilities before they expire.

This free webinar is offered by the Canadian Animal Blood Bank.