Le groupage sanguin en question: actualité et perspectives

Blood typing is a particular analysis because it involves blood safety. This is the reason why the public authorities set mandatory rules as early as 1965 and then in 1985. More recently the order of April 26, 2002 amending the order of November 26, 1999 about the effectiveness of laboratory medicine analyses drew up specific requirements in terms of automation and informatization, internal quality control and implementation rules of the analyses. After reporting that immunohematology activity in France was steadily increasing, a check up of the practices was conducted by a working group (WG). Repeated blood typing, the inadequate deployment of the electronic transmission of immunohematology results and the difficulties faced by labile blood products delivery services when taking into account the blood typing results carried out by external laboratories, led to proposals which are commented out and discussed in the article. The WG reasserts the need to collect two different blood samples in order to do two separate blood group determinations; the purpose is to secure the identification of the patients during sample collection. A national patient identification number is the prerequisite to a prolonged use of the immunohematological data and their extended accessibility to the different users in order to avoid the repetition of blood typing. The objective is to reduce health care costs without damaging blood safety.