For 25 years, Englewood Health has been an international leader in patient blood management and bloodless medicine and surgery. Two of its pioneers—Sherri Ozawa, RN, the clinical director of the Institute for Patient Blood Management and Bloodless Medicine and Surgery at Englewood Health, and Aryeh Shander, MD, former chief of the department of anesthesiology, critical care medicine, pain management and hyperbaric medicine at Englewood Health and now a senior consultant for the hospital’s bloodless institute—recently were invited to Nigeria to give keynote speeches at the 5th annual conference of the Bloodless Medicine and Surgery Society of Africa.
Held from October 31 through November 1 at the University of Calabar in Calabar, Nigeria, the conference addressed the pressing need for the development of bloodless medicine and surgery programs in that part of the world, in large part because of the high contamination rate of the donor blood supply.
The risk of transmission of serious infectious diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV, is extremely high in underdeveloped and economically challenged nations, such as Nigeria. The positive effects on patient outcomes from the application of patient blood management techniques developed and used at Englewood Hospital are now well documented in the medical literature worldwide.
Faculty members of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital have visited Englewood Hospital and drawn from its internationally renowned bloodless medicine and surgery program as the model for their institution. They have cared for hundreds of patients successfully, despite functioning in a severely economically challenged healthcare environment.
Ozawa, who is also president of the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management, and Dr. Shander, former president, were also recently invited to present at the 5th Asia Society of Patient Blood Management Symposium 2019 in Tokyo, Japan. Despite taking place during the largest typhoon to hit Japan in many years, attendees from throughout Asia presented their patient blood management experiences from various countries and medical settings. Speakers and attendees from Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and China described their visits to Englewood Hospital and the knowledge and inspiration they gained implementing patient blood management programs throughout Asia.
Posted November 2019