Yavapai Regional's Leading Patient Blood Management Program

Our bodies are a beautifully coordinated set of systems. Each system is important on its own, yet also dependent on all of the other systems to keep things working properly. We hear a lot about heart, brain, liver, and kidney health, but what about our precious liquid organ—our blood?

Fourteen years ago, administrative and clinical leaders at Yavapai Regional Medical Center had the foresight to bring a Patient Blood Management focus to our hospital. They understood the value it would offer their patients and their community. Today, the Patient Blood Management program at Dignity Health Yavapai Regional Medical Center is stronger than ever.

What is Patient Blood Management? How can it help you in everyday life, during hospitalization, and in surgery?

Simply put, Patient Blood Management aims to support and optimize blood health. This begins before patients are hospitalized for surgery by customizing therapies – nutrition, vitamins, minerals such as iron, medication management, and more—to prevent or treat anemia.

In the hospital’s surgical suites and patient care units, Patient Blood Management not only employs strategies that detect and treat anemia; it minimizes the risk for blood loss and improves overall health. Strategies include:

• Discussing with patients the risks and benefits of transfusions. There is growing evidence that patients who do not receive a transfusion have lower infection rates as well as fewer kidney, lung, and heart complications.
• Minimizing the frequency and volume of blood draws.
• Detecting and correcting any bleeding tendency the patient may have.
• Using techniques and equipment to manage blood usage.
• Meticulous surgery, which minimizes blood loss.

“Studies show that 90% of patients are anemic by their third day in the ICU. This is often caused by bleeding, from illness, and from excessive blood draws. Even more striking is that 45% to 80% of those patients were still anemic a year later,” explains Beth Black, Administrative Assistant and Data Manager, Dignity Health Yavapai Regional Medical Center, Patient Blood Management Program. “This is why minimizing the frequency of blood draws and mitigating blood loss during and after surgery is so important.”

In addition, a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic showed that 77% of patients who were not anemic prior to surgery were anemic after their surgery. In fact, they were as anemic as other patients who were anemic before their surgeries. “Anemia—less available oxygen—can impede recovery, slow healing, reduce function, and affect quality of life,” says Black.

So, how can you ensure that your blood is handled with care? In their book Blood Works, An Owner’s Guide, Aryeh Shander, Irwin Gross, and Shannon L. Farmer recommend the following questions:

Ask your health care provider:

• Am I anemic, or are my iron levels low? Could I have a full blood count and iron studies done?
• If my hemoglobin is low, do you know why?
• Could I be bleeding?
• If my iron is low, do you know why? Is further investigation appropriate? How can it be treated before my operation?
• Am I at a higher risk of bleeding during surgery? Are there any medications, herbals or vitamins I should stop taking?

Ask your surgeon:

• Do I really need this procedure? What are the risks? Are there safer options?
• What happens if I don’t do anything?
• How will my anemia be managed after surgery?
• Is there a possibility of blood transfusion with my planned operation? If so, what options are available to avoid blood transfusion in my operation?
• Can the amount of blood taken, and frequency of blood tests be minimized?
• If it gets to the point where you think a transfusion is unavoidable (and why would that be so?) can you limit the amount of blood you give me?
• Are you familiar with Patient Blood Management?

Now a national and global leader in the field, Dignity Health Yavapai Regional Medical Center is proud to be home to Arizona’s only Patient Blood Management program recognized by the Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM).

You can learn more during Patient Blood Management Awareness Week, November 3-7, 2025. Organized each year by SABM, and observed locally by Dignity Health Yavapai Regional Medical Center, the event promotes awareness and features a different daily theme, such as general blood health, surgical perioperative care, pediatric blood health, women’s blood health, and public-based initiatives. Visit https://www.sabm.org/pbm-awareness-week for details.