Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Arwa Z. Al-Riyami (Oman)
Vice Chair: Mark Yazer (USA)
Secretary: Lacey Johnson (Australia)
Treasurer: Satyam Arora (India)
Other Executive members:
Rebecca Cardigan (UK)
Pieter van der Meer (The Netherlands)
Neil Beckman (Australia/UK)
Committee members-subgroup leads:
Patient Blood Management (PBM): Katerina Pavenski (Canada), Yashaswi Dhiman (India)
Paediatrics: Ruchika Goel (USA), Satyam Arora (India)
Transfusion Practitioners (TP): Linley Bielby (Australia), Rachel Moss (UK)
Clinical Apheresis: Hans Vrielink (the Netherlands), Soumya Das (India)
Education: Richard Gammon (USA), Divjot Lambda (India)
Haemoglobinopathies: Ratti Ram Sharma, Kamini Khillan (India)
Wikipedia: Lise Estcourt (UK), Gopal Patidar (India)
Social Media: Soumya Das (India), Lakhvinder Singh (India)
Membership
As of January 2024, the Working Party comprises 116 members from 38 countries worldwide, including 14 Young Professionals (YPs) among the 28 new members. The WP experienced significant growth in 2022 and 2023, with a total of 49 new members joining. Currently, the WP has a total of 26 Young Professionals.
Meetings and Teleconferences
The WP conducted two hybrid business meetings; one in June 2023 (during ISBT Congress in Gothenburg) and January 2023 (ISBT Central office, Amsterdam), with representation from all subgroup leads. Additionally, the subgroups held regular meetings with their members, with varying frequencies [monthly for TP, quarterly for hemoglobinopathy, three for education, two for paediatrics and one for PBM, Wikipedia and social media.
Activities during the period
Restructuring of the of the WP
- The Wikipedia, social media and apheresis subgroups of working party underwent a process of election of new chair and co-chair of the subgroups.
- New subgroup chair (Gopal Patidar, India) and co-chair (Basanta Khatiwada, India) were appointed for the Wikipedia subgroup
- New subgroup chair (Sharmila Manian, USA) and co-chair (Murilo Moura, Brazil) were appointed for the social media subgroup
- The current chair and co-chair of the apheresis subgroup will continue for another term of 2-years
- The COVID-19 convalescent plasma working group, which was initiated in April 2020 has been now been added to the WP under the name “passive immune therapy”. The new subgroup is led by Cynthia So-Osman and Sharmila Manian
- The TP, paediatrics, hemoglobinopathy and patient blood management will undergo elections for the new chairs in 2024.
Completed Activities
- New webpages for the social media, hemoglobinopathy and passive immune therapy subgroups. In addition, the WP updated the webpages for TP, Wikipedia and Education subgroups
- ISBT Transfusion Reaction eLearning module: Increased promotion for the English version of the module took place early in 2023, leading to increased number of learners who obtained completion certificates with CMEs to 106. Efforts were done to translate the module into Spanish language by members of the WP José María García and Murilo Daflon) with the launch of the Spanish version in August 2023. In addition, the WP obtained support from the European School of Transfusion Medicine (ESTM) to translate the module into French which is aimed to be released in March 2024.
- Four Transfusion Practitioners podcasts were recorded; Total of 6 completed in 2023, bringing the total number of podcasts to 10, accessible through the TP webpage on ISBT website, Spotify, google and Apple podcasts.
- Ongoing social media activities using #ISBTClinical and #TransfusionPractictioner.
- Organization of the second ISBT World Blood Donor Day social media campaign 1-13th June 2023, with participation from ISBT and WP members, their followers and institutions, and support from the CO including graphic and poster designs. The campaign took place over Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook and utilized the hashtag #ISBTWBDD2023 to highlight its posts. The campaign was featured by an opening and closing videos by the ISBT regional director of Africa (Shirley Owusu Ofori) and the chair of the working party (Arwa Al Riyami). The campaign achieved a 1.6M social media reach compared to 312K in 2022 campaign, 1.6K interactions and 1.3K likes. The campaign had global participation and in different languages. The social media champion for the campaign was National Blood Service of Ghana.
- Updating Wikipedia pages on transfusion medicine in hemoglobinopathies and transfusion practitioner.
- Completion of series of projects on e-learning in TM:
- Elearning/Online education in transfusion medicine: A cross-sectional international survey. Abstract presented at ISBT2022, published in Transfusion Medicine 2022
- Elearning in Transfusion Medicine, a scoping review: Abstract presented at ISBT2023 Gothenburg, published in Transfusion 2023
- TM E-learning/online education qualitative research: in collaboration with Lifeblood, Australia (funded by ISBT 5K grant) Abstract presented at ISBT2023 Cape Town, under review, Vox Sanguinis journal
- Completion of 3 book chapters of a Springer book “The Use of Blood” on Patient Blood Management (Philip Crispin, Yashaswi Dhiman, Divjot Singh Lamba, Arwa Z. Al-Riyami), Platelet Transfusion (Kamini Khillan, Flavia Bandeira, Tomohiko Sato, Katerina Pavenski) and Red Blood Cell Transfusion (Richard Gammon, Naomi Rahimi-Levene, Flavia Miranda Gomes de Constantino Bandeira, Arwa Z. Al-Riyami
- I TRY IT (2022/2023); supervision of a full cohort of 6 participants in a joint collaboration with the TTID and immunohematology WPs. Two members of the WP are participating as mentors in the program for the last four years (Leo van de Watering and Arwa Al Riyami). The scope was on writing research protocols in the fields of TTID, Clinical Transfusion, and immunohematology.
- Issue of the first WP newsletter (May 2023) with the aim of updating the WP members with the activities of the WP
- Running of the second WP members’ engagement survey with the aim of obtaining members’ feedback on the WP activities and engagement opportunities.
- One virtual “Meet the Expert” session by Mark Yazer and Richard Gammon on massive hemorrhage management
Congresses
ISBT Gothenburg 2023 activities:
- Transfusion Practitioner workshop; Wrong blood in tube: Linley Bielby, Rachel Moss with facilitators - Jana Vanden Broeck, Clare O’Reilly, Amanda Catherwood, and Jo Goodwin
- Transfusion Practitioners Networking breakfast: Linley Bielby, Rachel Moss, Jana Vanden Broeck and Clare O’Reilly
- Meet the expert breakfast session: Katerina Pavenski and Cynthia So-Osman (PBM), Nour AlMozain (Hemoglobinopathy), Ruchika Goel (Paediatrics), Hans Vrielink (Apheresis), Arwa Al Riyami (Education)
Presentations:
- Satyam Arora: Whole Blood Use in Children
- Helen New: Optimizing blood components for neonates and children
- Cassandra Josephson: Pediatric Transfusion Medicine has a healthy growth curve
- Linley Bielby on behalf of the STIR Expert Group, Australia - ABO incompatible transfusions still a significant risk: 15 years of data from the Serious Transfusion Incident Report (STIR) program, Australia
Posters
- Arwa Al Riyami, Oman: E-learning in TM education, A scoping review
- Linley Bielby, Australia: Collaboration & communication: key elements of implementing state-wide change to reduce O RhD negative red blood cell use
- Kamini Khillan ,India : Low-Cost Autologous Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) Processing Technique using Quadruple Blood Bags as Adjuvant Therapy in Management of AVN of Hip Joint
ISBT Cape Town 2023
- Arwa Al-Riyami, Oman: Empowering Clinical Researchers through mentorship and E-learning in TM education, a qualitative report of existing programs
Regional Meetings (ISBT Academy) participations/ presentations
- Blood Safety & Quality CME, A primer on Patient Blood Management, Department of Transfusion Medicine, AHMS, New Delhi, India: Richard Gammon, Basics of Patient Blood Management
- 15th Arab Transfusion Medicine Forum, Cairo, Egypt, December 2023: In collaboration with ATMF: Satyam Arora: Whole Blood Use in Children and Arwa Al Riyami: Massive Transfusion Management
- 6th Macedonian Society of Transfusion Medicine Forum, Skopje, Macedonia, Sep 2023: Ruchika Goel: Pediatric Hemovigilance: Paediatric and Adult Landscape and Big Data in Transfusion Medicine: Silos no more
Collaborations
- Collaboration with ICTMG on the development of unified definitions for massive transfusion
- Collaboration with WHO on the revision of its guidance document on the use of convalescent plasma in pandemics
- Collaboration with Neonatal Transfusion Network
Working Party Publications:
- E-learning in transfusion medicine: A scoping review. Arwa Z. Al-Riyami, Jana Vanden Broeck, Naomi Rahimi-Levene, Soumya Das, Ben Saxon, Yulia Lin, Simon J. Stanworth.
- Managing blood supplies during natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies, and pandemics: lessons learned from COVID-19. Van Denakker TA, Al-Riyami AZ, Feghali R, Gammon R, So-Osman C, Crowe EP, Goel R, Rai H, Tobian AAR, Bloch EM. Expert Rev Hematol.
- Guidance on the Use of Convalescent Plasma to Treat Immunocompromised Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019. Bloch EM, Focosi D, Shoham S, Senefeld J, Tobian AAR, Baden LR, Tiberghien P, Sullivan DJ, Cohn C, Dioverti V, Henderson JP, So-Osman C, Juskewitch JE, Razonable RR, Franchini M, Goel R, Grossman BJ, Casadevall A, Joyner MJ, Avery RK, Pirofski LA, Gebo KA. Clin Infect Dis.
- Convalescent plasma for people with COVID-19: a living systematic review. Iannizzi C, Chai KL, Piechotta V, Valk SJ, Kimber C, Monsef I, Wood EM, Lamikanra AA, Roberts DJ, McQuilten Z, So-Osman C, Jindal A, Cryns N, Estcourt LJ, Kreuzberger N, Skoetz N. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2023 May 10
- Patient blood management in adults and children: What have we achieved, and what still needs to be addressed?. Al-Mozain N, Arora S, Goel R, Pavenski K, So-Osman C.Transfus Clin Biol.
