Welcome to the BeQuinT homepage!
This is an initiative of the Belgian health authority: Federal Public Service of Public Health
About BeQuinT
BeQuinT was created in 2011.
Mission: in the Belgian hospitals:
- the improvement of the quality of transfusion practice and haemovigilance
- the improvement of the consumption of blood components,
- the implementation of Patient Blood Management and the measurement of results based on indicators.
Composition: Representatives of various types of health professionals from the different disciplines, communities and (professional) organisations.
Chair: Prof. Dr. S. Lessire (sarah.lessire@chuuclnamur.uclouvain.be).
Project coordinator: Ms. J. Vanden Broeck (jana.vandenbroeck@health.fgov.be).
National surveys
National survey on the quality of hospital transfusion practice
Background: In 2011, no data were available about the quality of hospital transfusion practice at the national level.
Materials and methods: Three consecutive national surveys (2012, 2014 and 2016) were performed in all 111 Belgian hospitals to assess the degree of implementation of standards in four process domains related to red blood cell (RBC) transfusion: general
quality aspects, ordering of RBC, electronic traceability and reporting of adverse events. The surveys were part of a methodology based on informing, feedback and benchmarking. Responses to questions were analysed semi-quantitatively, and hospitals could score 10 points on each of the domains.
Conclusion: The results showed that the applied methodology was a powerful tool to improve quality of transfusion practices and to optimize utilization of RBC at the national level.
More information: see publication in Vox Sanguinis 2021;1-9.
National Patient Blood Management survey
In 2020, all the Belgian hospitals with transfusion committees completed an online survey on PBM.
The survey consisted of 5 sections: 1) organisation, 2) PBM in haemato-oncology, 3) pre-operative PBM, 4) intra- and post-operative PBM, 5) PBM in internal medicine and geriatrics. Click here for a summary of the results.
The second national PBM survey will be performed in 2023.
Former working groups
Events
Here you can find some English presentations of our past events:
- 2021:
PBM webinars for clinicians:- Visco-elastic testing as a PBM tool in today clinical practice
Introduction to viscoelastic testing(This hyperlink opens a new window) (Dr. T. Strypens, Belgium) (YouTube)
Point-of-Care Guided Therapy: Development and validation of a ROTEM algorithm (Dr. T. Strypens, Belgium) (YouTube)
Use of ROTEM in clinical practice: clinical cases (Dr. G. Hans, Belgium) (YouTube)
- Single unit transfusion of RBC
Single Unit Transfusion, from transfusion trigger to target (Dr. M. Beran, Belgium) (YouTube)
Single unit transfusion policy: practical approach in the past and in the future of UZ Gent (Ms. N. Dussart, Belgium) (YouTube)
- Optimising the perioperative management of anticoagulants and antiaggregants
And then there were DOACs … (Prof. dr. K. Jochmans, Belgium) (YouTube)
Perioperative management of anticoagulants and antiaggregants (Prof. dr. T. Vanassche, Belgium) (YouTube)
Practical examples of presenting guidelines to the clinic concerning peri-operative anticoagulation management (Dr. E. Bailleul, Belgium) (YouTube)
Anticoagulation management in patients with hip fracture: pitfalls and challenges (Pharm. A.-L. Sennesael, Belgium) (YouTube)
- Visco-elastic testing as a PBM tool in today clinical practice
- 2020:
Patient Blood Management in obstetrics (Dr. S. Pavord, UK)
Planning for the management of potential blood shortages in hospitals in England (Prof. Dr. M. Murphy)
- 2017:
PBM and transfusion services in the UK (Dr. S. Morton, UK)
PBM - What difference does the Transfusion Practitioner make? (Ms. R. Moss, UK)
PBM in Belgium: a personal experience (Prof. Dr. P. Van der Linden, Belgium)
- 2014:
PBM (Prof. Dr. H. Gombotz, Austria)
Single-unit RBC Transfusion Policy (Prof. Dr. G. Stüssi, Switzerland)
Implementation of temperature indicators in the Austrian Tyrol (Prof. Dr. H. Schennach, Austria)