"Let's get together and feel all right"

This blog entry features two Canadian websites that offer a wealth of useful resources and tools, the BC Provincial Blood Coordinating website, pbco.ca, which has just been redesigned, and learntransfusion.ca, a website for CBS transfusion medicine (TM) residents.

SHARING
I'm a big supporter of sharing resources. As Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae singer-song writer- musician said in his One Love mega-hit:

• "Let's get together and feel all right."

Sharing helps transfer knowledge and expertise to the next generation of professionals, especially harder now that:

• So many are about to retire
• Financial constraints leave less money to spend on education and real-world training
• Staff shortages result in less time for mentoring new staff
• Restructuring has led to more generalists and fewer specialists

Today it's especially important to try to capture the type of knowledge that is seldom found in textbooks, including the type of tacit knowledge that we often do not even realize we have.

Sharing can be thought of in terms of physics and the Law of Conservation of Energy, i.e., the amount of energy in a closed system is constant, but as Bob Heterick, former president of EDUCOM said:

• "The easiest way to make a system vibrant and robust is to connect it to even larger systems, permitting the import and export of information and energy between them."
• Source: Heterick's acceptance speech in 1994 of an award for use of information technology in higher education

This blog's featured websites play a key role in keeping TM education within individual institutions and locales robust.

BC PBCO
The BC PBCO was the first PBCO created in Canada and over the years has set a high standard for others to follow. The redesigned website offers many world class resources, e.g.,

• Utilization management (red cells, platelets, plasma, IVIG, coagulation products, albumin)

• Information management (including a Central Transfusion Registry)

• Quality management, including the TraQ program

• Other resources such as multiple systematic reviews on blood derivative usage

LEARN TRANSFUSION
Thanks to a friend and colleague, Shanta Rohse (who I consider a Renaissance woman in that she has broad intellectual interests in both the arts and sciences), I learned about learntransfusion.ca (LT) aka "Blood Depot," a site for its TM residents that CBS has made available to the public.
LT has a wealth of resources and this blog entry is meant to feature a few of the many "goodies" on the site, managed by CBS resident coordinator, Dr. Ben Saxon.

For example, here you can find

• Designing SOPS for learners and the related "Cognitive learning principles checklist" (**Please see Shanta's clarification in "Comments" below)

• Topic teaching: many valuable presentations - a great way to get an overview of key TM topics

• Case Learning: multiple case study scenarios

• Unique and practical Powerpoint presentations such as Transfusasaurus (That’s you!) by Dr. Jeannie Callum
  

I encourage you to navigate the BC PBCO and Learn Transfusion sites to access all that they have so generously shared. Future blogs will feature other key TM websites around the globe that are leaders in developing and sharing TM resources, leading to improved transfusion practice and patient safety.

Disclosure: I am the webmaster for TraQ, a program of BC PBCO, but I alone am responsible for this blog and all its contents.
Comments are most welcome BUT, due to excessive spam,  please e-mail me personally or use the address in the newsletter notice.