Perioperative-Patient Blood Management (P-PBM)
Perioperative-Patient Blood Management offers a cost-effective, resource-efficient approach that not only preserves patients’ own blood but also empowers them through better diagnosis, treatment, and perioperative care.
Developed in 2023-2025 by the WFSA P-PBM Steering Group together with 29 Collaborators from all over the world, the WFSA P-PBM Course is a structured, modular educational programme designed to provide anaesthesiologists with comprehensive knowledge and leadership to become experts in P-PBM principles and processes, laying the foundation for sustainable and systematic P-PBM implementation at the institutional level.
Grant support from CSL Vifor was instrumental in the development and piloting of the course in Colombia (2025) and Romania (2026). In parallel, WFSA was able to adapt the course over several months to suit resource-limited environments through a restricted grant from Global Health Partnerships (GHP), which resulted in the P-PBM Course – Adapted to Limited-resource Settings, also piloted in 2025 in Ethiopia. Selecting the most appropriate version of the course for a specific cohort depends on the course location and the locally available resources.
Course format
The P-PBM Course is tailored to be delivered to anaesthesiologists. This intensive 2-day training is built to equip participants to become P-PBM champions, act as agents of change and lead P-PBM implementation in their facilities. Combining expert-led lectures with interactive small-group sessions, the curriculum addresses the major issues for optimisation of blood in surgical patients and covers the following key topics:
- The importance of treating the patient’s own blood with respect
- Main concepts of a PBM programme
- Physiology of blood tissue and assessment
- Optimising the patient’s own blood
- Minimising the patient’s blood loss
- Shock, endothelium and haemostasis
- Improving patient-specific tolerance to anaemia
- PBM in special populations
- Governance, awareness and information systems in PBM
- Implementing a P-PBM programme
Hosting a P-PBM Course
For quality assurance, a P-PBM Course accommodates 20-24 participants, requiring a team of one experienced WFSA course director and six faculty members to deliver it.
Course materials are currently available in English only.
If you are interested in hosting a P-PBM Course in your country, whether in English or another language, please contact Sara Portugal at sara.portugal@wfsahq.org.
Further resources:
Endorsing the Santa Cruz Declaration: Strengthening Patient Blood Management Globally
Guidance on Implementing Patient Blood Management (PBM): World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO’s New Guidance on Patient Blood Management
P-PBM Blog: From Scarcity to Strategy: Reshaping Blood Care in Africa Through PBM
P-PBM Blog: Beyond Transfusion: PBM Lessons from Two Severe Anaemia Cases
P-PBM Blog: the Role of Lyophilized Factor Concentrates in P-PBM
