Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Arwa Z. Al-Riyami (Oman)
Vice Chair: Mark Yazer (USA)
Secretary: Satyam Arora (India)
Committee members-subgroup leads:
Patient Blood Management (PBM): Kamini Khillan, Yashaswi Dhiman (India)
Paediatrics: Satyam Arora (India), Ravi Dara (UAE)
Transfusion Practitioners (TP): Rachel Moss (UK), Jana Vanden (Belgium)
Clinical apheresis: Hans Vrielink (the Netherlands), Soumya Das (India)
Education: Richard Gammon (USA), Divjot Lambda (India)
Haemoglobinopathies: Ratti Ram Sharma, Sangeeta Pahuja (India)
Wikipedia: Gopal Patidar (India), Basanta Khatiwada (Nepal)
Social Media: Sharmila Manian (Malaysia), Murilo Matos Daflon Moura (Brazil)
Passive Immune Therapy: Cynthia So-Osman (the Netherlands), Sharmila Manian (Malaysia)
Membership
The WP experienced significant growth in 2023 and 2024. As of January 2025, the WP comprises 134 active members from 46 countries worldwide, including 33 Young Professionals (YPs).
Meetings and Teleconferences
The WP conducted two hybrid business meetings, one in June 2024 (during ISBT Congress in Barcelona) and one in January 2025 (ISBT Central office, Amsterdam), with representation from all subgroup leads. Additionally, the subgroups held regular meetings with their members, with varying frequencies .
Activities during the period
Structure of the of the WP
- Four subgroups of the WP underwent elections of new chair and co-chair in Fall 2024; Pediatric, hemoglobinopathy, PBM and TP subgroups.
- New subgroup chair (Satyam Arora, India) and co-chair (Ravi Dara, UAE) were appointed for the Pediatric subgroup
- New subgroup chair (Kamini Khillan, India) and co-chair (Yashaswi Dhiman, India) were appointed for the PBM subgroup
- New subgroup chair (Rachel Moss, UK) and co-chair (Jana Vanden, Belgium) were appointed for the TP subgroup
- New subgroup chair (Ratti Ram Sharma, India) and co-chair (Sangeeta Pahuja, India) were appointed for the Hemoglobinopathy subgroup
- Three subgroups of the WP will undergo elections in fall 2025; Social media, Clinical Apheresis, and Education subgroups
- Katerina Pavenski were appointed as the new Board liaison for CT WP effective from June 2024
- New subgroup named “Life-Threatening Haemorrhage” was proposed by Mark Yazer (USA) and was approved in WP business meeting 2025. Subgroup formation took place in Feb/March 2025. The group will be led by Mark Yazer (USA). Co-chair is yet to be decided.
- The Terms of Reference (TOR) of the WP was revised and reviewed by the WP committee in January 2025, and approved by the ISBT board in its March 2025 meeting.
Completed Activities
- Website updates: All subgroups have created subgroup webpages on the working party website. These are annually updated with the help of the ISBT office.
- Academy webpages: Academy webpages: Clinical use of Blood project with WHO, now stand- alone of ISBT: finalized 5 remaining chapters on ISBT webpages (principles of appropriate use of blood, plasma transfusion, platelet transfusion, adverse events, transfusion in under resourced countries)
- ISBT Transfusion Reaction E-learning module: Increased promotion for the English version of the module took place in 2024, leading to an increased number of learners who obtained completion certificates with CMEs. The E-learning module was translated into Spanish and French languages in 2023 & 2024. Efforts were made to translate the module into Portugese language by members of the WP in 2025.
- Transfusion Practitioners podcasts: 13 podcasts have been recorded & published.
- Essentials of Blood Transfusion Teaching: A joint project between the TP & Education Subgroups of the WP has been completed in 2024, and published on the ISBT website. The content is published in 2 modules; Essentials of Blood Transfusion Teaching for Nurses, and Essentials of Blood Transfusion Teaching for Resident Doctors.
- Ongoing social media activity: With content development by the social media subgroup and publishing using #ISBTClinical and #TransfusionPractictioner with support of the office
- Third ISBT World Blood Donor Day social media campaign: ISBT WBDD 2024 social media campaign was conducted in June 2024 for 2 weeks. This year, the campaign was in different languages. #ISBTWBDD2024 was the hashtag used. Campaign outputs : Instagram: 512 likes, 28 comments, 103 shares | LinkedIn: 622 likes, 22 comments, 87 shares, 21,474 impressions | Twitter (X): 6,325 impressions
- Springer Nature Book contributions- “Clinical Use of Blood, A Different Approach”: Nov 2024. With 3 chapters; Arwa Z. Al Riyami as book section editors, and authors from 3 different subgroups; PBM, education and pediatrics as follows.
- Section 3 Chapter 7: Patient Blood Management (by Philip Crispin, Yashaswi Dhiman, Divjot Singh Lamba, Arwa Z. Al-Riyami)
- Section 3 Chapter 8: Platelet transfusion (by Kamini Khillan, Flavia Bandeira, Tomohiko Sato, Katerina Pavenski)
- Section 3 Chapter 9: Red Blood Cell Transfusion (by Richard Gammon, Naomi Rahimi-Levene, Flavia Miranda Gomes de Constantino Bandeira, Arwa Z. Al-Riyami)
- Wikipedia updates of transfusion content in collaboration with other subgroups in the WP. Creation of an official ISBT universal account for uniformity (ISBTworkingParties). Collaboration with blood component WP is ongoing on updating their content
- I TRY IT-II (2024); completed successfully with enrolment of 15 mentee and 2 mentors from the WP and one publication in Vox Sanguinis (below)
- Second WP newsletter issued May 2024 to update the WP members with the activities of the WP
- Third WP members’ engagement survey was done in October 2024 to obtain members’ feedback on the WP activities and engagement opportunities.
- ISBT Grant projects
- Completion of 3 projects on e-learning in TM education leading to 3 publications, sponsored by grant obtained from ISBT
- Ongoing work on 2 projects on AI in TM education and research (completion due in 2025)
- Submission of a grant for projects on implementation of guidelines (approved in March 2025)
- Congress proposal and abstract submissions
- Submission of congress proposal for ISBT Milan 2025 for a TP and AI workshops
- Subgroups submitting abstracts for ISBT Milan congress; Wikipedia (accepted poster), Education (accepted oral)
- Educational activities
- Meet the Expert sessions (virtual)
- Pediatric Subgroup (Hemostatic Challenges in Children on ECMO): May 2024
- Live Journal Clubs
- PBM subgroup: Achievement and barriers in implementing national PBM programme strategies- December 2024
- PBM Subgroup: Use of IV Albumin: A guideline from the ICTMG: July 2024
- PBM subgroup: Evolving Conundrum: Who gets the red cell transfusion and when- August 2024
- Passive Immune Therapy subgroup: Use of Convalescent plasma for COVID-19: State of the art lecture- Nov 7 2024
- Webinars
- Education Subgroup: E-learning in Transfusion Medicine: August 2024
- Education Subgroup: Avoidable transfusion insight from SHOT: October 2024
Congresses
ISBT Barcelona 2024 activities:
- Transfusion Practitioner Networking Breakfast
- Transfusion Practitioners workshop and Inauguration of ISBT Transfusion Practitioners Day inaugurated by Michael Busch.
- AI in Transfusion Medicine Workshop
- Presented by Arwa Al-Riyami, Jansen N Seheult, Richard Gammon, Ruchika Goel, Satyam Arora
- WP outcomes have been published in Vox Sanguinis (below)
- WP session: Global Variations in Transfusion Practices and Educational Approaches
- Yashaswi Dhiman: International Forum on Global Patient Blood Management
- Satyam Arora: Global variation on Blood Centre practices in supporting Neonatal Transfusions.
- Arwa Al-Riyami: E-learning in Transfusion Medicine Education
- Session in collaboration with cellular therapy WP and EBMT for collaboration for collecting cells for CART (GO-CART); in presenting on collection of CART during the congress
- Posters
- ISBT World Blood Donor Day Social Media Campaign by: Arwa Z. Al-Riyami, Soumya Das, Satyam Arora, Marion Molliet, Beatriz Galindo
- Participation at ISBT 5 K fun walk/run
- Working party meeting & reception
- Social Media activities & testimonials from attending members during the congress & using the hashtags #ISBTBarcelona and #ISBTClinical.
Regional and National Meetings participations/ presentations
- 4th Workshop for Orientation and Induction of Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Hemoglobinopathies and Haemophilia, in India, January 2025; Sheetal Malhotra.
- ISBT International Symposium on Neonatal and Pediatric Transfusions in India, 21st December 2024 : Satyam Arora, Ruchika Goel, Cassandra Josephson and Simon Stanworth participated.
- Monthly meetings with patients diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease throughout in Brazil, 2024: Flavia Miranda Bandeira
- Apheresis Awareness Week- Collaborate with ASFA in 3rd Week of September 2024
- 17th international congress of the World Apheresis Association in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 11-14th September, 2024 : Satyam Arora, Arwa Al Riyami, Soumya Das, and Hans Vrielink
Collaborations
- Collaboration with WHO on the revision of its guidance document on the use of convalescent plasma in pandemics
- Collaboration with Neonatal Transfusion Network
- Collaboration with ASFA for making ASFA guidelines freely accessible to the members of ISBT
- Collaboration with ISBT Blood Component WP on Wikipedia updates
Working Party Publications:
- International Forum on Global Patient Blood Management: Responses. Dhiman Y, Pavenski K, Patidar G, Triyono T, Sato T, Al-Riyami AZ, Al-Kemyani N, Maegele M, Kumawat V, Tripathi PP, Khatiwada B, Bienz M, Howell A, Crispin PJ, Rahimi-Levene N, Badawi MA, Hindawi S, Núñez MA, Saa E, Kullaste R, Gammon RR, Dargis M, Mutindu SM, Mosolo A, Lindoro AB, Estcourt L, Dunbar N. Vox Sang. 2025 Jan;120(1):89-103. doi: 10.1111/vox.13761. Epub 2024 Nov 13. PMID: 39537247.
- International Forum on Global Patient Blood Management: Summary. Dhiman Y, Pavenski K, Patidar G, Triyono T, Sato T, Al-Riyami AZ, Al-Kemyani N, Maegele M, Kumawat V, Tripathi PP, Khatiwada B, Bienz M, Howell A, Crispin PJ, Rahimi-Levene N, Badawi MA, Hindawi S, Núñez MA, Saa E, Kullaste R, Gammon RR, Dargis M, Mutindu SM, Mosolo A, Lindoro AB, Estcourt L, Dunbar N. Vox Sang. 2025 Jan;120(1):80-88. doi: 10.1111/vox.13760. Epub 2024 Nov 13. PMID: 39537336.
- The use of predictive modelling to determine the likelihood of donor return during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gammon, RR, Hindawi, S, Al-Riyami, AZ, Ang, AL, Bazin, R, Bloch, EM, Counts, K, de Angelis, V, Goel, R, Grubovic Rastvorceva, RM, Pati, I, Lee, C-K, La Raja, M, Mengoli, C, Oreh, A, Patidar, GK, Rahimi-Levene, N, Ravula, U, Rexer, K, So-Osman, C, Thachil, J, Nevessignsky, MT & Vermeulen, M. Transfusion Medicine (2024), vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 333-343.
- Red cell specifications for blood group matching in patients with haemoglobinopathies: An updated systematic review and clinical practice guideline from the International Collaboration for Transfusion Medicine Guidelines. Wolf J, Blais‐Normandin I, Bathla A, Keshavarz H, Chou ST, Al-Riyami AZ, Josephson CD, Massey E, Hume HA, Pendergrast J, Denomme G. British Journal of Haematology. 2024 Nov 13.
- E‐learning in transfusion medicine: An exploratory qualitative assessment. Al‐Riyami AZ, Jensen K, So‐Osman C, Saxon B, Rahimi‐Levene N, Das S, Stanworth SJ, Lin Y. Vox Sanguinis. Vox Sanguinis. 2024;119:842–850.
- Artificial intelligence and transfusion education, research and practice: The view from the ISBT Clinical Transfusion Working Party. Al-Riyami, Arwa Z., Richard R. Gammon, Jansen Seheult, Satyam Arora, and Ruchika Goel. Vox Sanguinis, December 2024; DOI: 10.1111/vox.13793
- The role of convalescent plasma and hyperimmune immunoglobulins in the COVID-19 pandemic, including implications for future preparedness So-Osman, Cynthia, Thierry Burnouf, Arwa Z. Al-Riyami, Evan M. Bloch, Lise Estcourt, Ruchika Goel, Pierre Tiberghien, Marion Vermeulen, Silvano Wendel, and Erica M. Wood. Frontiers in immunology 15 (2024): 1448720.
- Artificial intelligence chatbots in transfusion medicine: A cross‐sectional study. Srivastava P, Tewari A, Al‐Riyami AZ. Vox Sanguinis. 2025 Mar 7.
