National Clinical Guidelines on Intraoperative Massive Haemorrhage
The broad scope of the National Clinical Guidelines on Intraoperative Massive Haemorrhage project includes unanticipated massive haemorrhage events caused by the operating/surgical procedure itself. Patient safety is the primary driver of the project, with an opportunity to make relevant and valuable improvements based on evidence-based practice.
National clinical guidelines become mandated practice in the health system and to ensure the quality and integrity of the guideline, all guideline development groups follow an agreed framework to assist in the design, development and implementation of such guidelines.
Within the Irish health system, the existing blood transfusion guideline was created in 2002. The development group for these guidelines is in the process of reviewing the latest evidence with regard to massive haemorrhage and will recommend improvements and standardisation of practice to assist with preventing, recognising and managing massive haemorrhage events.
National clinical guidelines typically take two years to create, approve and commence implementing in the health system. This project commenced in March 2019 and as of July 2019, the development group had finalised a scoping document of what the guidelines will aim to address.
Guideline Development Group
The process of developing a national clinical guideline is managed through the National Clinical Effectiveness Committee (NCEC) who oversee all guidelines through a prioritisation and quality assurance process.
The NCEC outlined criteria to assist in defining the membership of a Guideline Development Group (GDG) – typical composition includes a chair, clinical expert representatives, research expertise, project management and patient representatives.
The current members of the GDG are:
- Chair: Prof. John Hyland
- Anaesthesiologist: Dr Jeremy Smith (Sligo)
- Obstetrician and Gynaecologist: Dr Naomi Burke (Rotunda)
- Haematologist: Dr Joan Power (IBTS)
- Medical Scientist, Haematology/Coagulation: Dr Norma Reidy (CUH)
- Medical Scientist, Transfusion: Patsy Kelleher (Tallaght)
- Vascular Surgeon: Mr Edward Mulkern (Mater)
- General Surgeon: Mr David Waldron (UHL)
- Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon: Mr Aiden Devitt (UHG)
- Urology: Mr Barry McGuire (St Vincent's)
- Interventional Radiologist: Dr Cormac Farrelly (Mater)
- Theatre nursing: Ms Fiona Hanrahan (Rotunda)
- Perioperative nursing: Ms Aileen O Brien (Nurse Lead Anaest. Prog)
- Patient representatives: Marie Cregan and Judy Ryan
- NOCA: Marina Cronin
- Methodology/Research: Laura Comber
- Project Manager: Miriam Kennedy (RCSI)
If you have any queries about this project, please contact Miriam Kennedy.