Years ago, blood bank at Renji Hospital was still a specialty branch which affiliated to Department of Clinical Laboratory. In 2007, the blood bank became an independent Department of Blood Transfusion. For the past few years, under the leadership of successive director, Professor Jingqiu ZHAO and Professor Jieying HAN, the department has become a distinguished clinical specialty integrating pre-transfusion testing and consultative services, storage and distribution of blood products for patient in need of blood component therapy, areas covering medical care, education, scientific researching and supervision of blood for medical care. Since 2013, director Jiang WU has led the department with the concept of “solid founded, better capable, clinical oriented, safety priority”, and the working motto of “safeguard blood transfusion as life”.

At present, the personnel structure of Department of Blood Transfusion is 22 medical professionals, including 1 Assistant Chief Physician, 1 Attending Physician, 4 Supervising Technicians, 16 technician/assistant technicians. More than 90 percent staff with bachelor degree or above, and their average age is only 36 years old, that making them more vigorous, powerful and dynamic in job. The department holds a total 600 square meters of medical area, and is equipped with one of the most advanced fully automated blood typing and cross matching of blood analysis system, such as “Erytra(Grifols)” and “IH1000(Bio-Rad)”, which have a high volume processing capacity for pre-transfusion testing.

The Renji Hospital Department of Blood Transfusion is to provide 24-hour high quality medical care and hospital services at each medical district. The medical care and hospital services include clinical laboratory diagnostics and patient therapeutics and clinical research support. The clinical laboratory diagnostics include immunohematology testing services, such as multi-method erythrocyte ABO and RhD blood group typing, cross matching, antibody screening and identification, blood type reference matching and difficult matching cases, platelet antibody screening and identification and cross matching, and consultative services for immunohematology and hemolytic disease of the newborn and the adverse reaction of blood transfusion diagnostics and interpretation. The patient therapeutics include therapeutic phlebotomy, therapeutic apheresis procedures, including all kinds of white blood cell,  peripheral blood stem cells, platelet, plasma and red blood cell, plasma exchange procedure, leukocyte filtration of various blood components, clinical blood transfusion consultation and guidance, difficult and complicated case discussion and evaluation, peripheral blood stem cells collection, removal of blood pathological components, pre-operative autologous blood donation and therapeutic apheresis support services. The percentage of blood component transfusion maintains more than 99 percent at Renji hospital, leading nationally. Up to 40,000 units blood products which were the top three hospitals in Shanghai were distributed from Department of Blood Transfusion every year, while never mistake occurred. In the external quality assessment of National Center for Clinical Laboratories, the scores of immunohematology testing, including erythrocyte ABO and RhD blood group typing, cross matching, and blood type antibody screening, was always excellent.

The Department of Blood Transfusion, apart fullfilling its own medical mission, assists Department of Medical Affairs and Hospital Transfusion Committees with supervision of blood for medical care in the entire hospital by establishing a series of quality assessment standard and blood transfusion guidelines in order to ensure that blood transfusion practice accords with best practice. The department also pays attention to the frontier of the development of transfusion medicine, advocates the patient-centered patient blood management (PBM) as new blood transfusion ideas, and expands its spectrum of operation. It runs projects supported by Shanghai Public Health Key discipline Construction Plan, including “Assessment Method and Establishment of Standards for Transfusion Therapy”, “Assessment Standards and Solutions for Futile Red Blood Cells Transfusion”, “Blood Transfusion Related Immunoregulation and Basic and Clinical Researches on TRALI”.