The AABB conference was busy. With about 6,300 registered participants and 200 exhibitors, the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was hopping from early morning until well into the evening each day from October 6 through 9. Conference attendees had their choice of more than 150 educational sessions, including the Leadership Management Track, the Quality/Education Track, the Scientific Track, and the Technical/Clinical Track. The earliest sessions began at 7 a.m., and the latest ended at 5:30 p.m.—and this did not include Industry Workshops and Corporate Evening Satellite Symposia. In many of the sessions all the seats were filled, and floor space for late arrivers was at a premium too. The CTTXPO was also busy, as attendees met with representatives of exhibiting companies and viewed demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies. And large numbers of people filed through the rows of educational posters provided by a variety of organizations.
The AABB conference was serious. That is, it was fun, as all conventions worth their name are, as friends met old friends and made new friends, but laboratorians were there primarily to share information and best practices. This was a working convention; repeatedly, I heard people express that they would be “bringing back home” knowledge that they were acquiring. One of the things that makes AABB a great organization is that it genuinely addresses the needs of laboratorians who work in the blood bank. Attendees came to share common experiences and work toward common solutions to common challenges; AABB provided a forum for them to do so.
The AABB conference was inspiring. Like all clinical laboratory scientists, those who work in the blood bank know that theirs is not just a job or a career, but a trust. People who may not know their names or faces nevertheless depend on them to play a critical role in healthcare delivery. The idea of stewardship, of safe and effective management of blood products at all stages of the donation-to-transfusion continuum, is not just an ideal for the people I spoke with: it is their life’s work. I don’t know that I have ever been among a group of people who champion the value of service to others more passionately than those I met at AABB.
For my part, my most important goal at the convention was to meet with readers of MLO to hear their priorities and concerns and their ideas about how to make the magazine more useful to them. I was grateful to receive a substantial amount of input, and you will see the results of that in these pages in the months ahead. I also spent as much time as I could meeting with exhibitors, talking with them about their products and services and viewing brief presentations.
I also found time to attend three rewarding educational sessions:
- “Where’s the Beef? Recipes to ‘Beef Up’ the Weak Areas in Your Transfusion Service,” moderated by Theresa Downs, MT(ASCP)SBB, CQA(ASQ). This session addressed issues related to standards and requirements that transfusion services often struggle with.
- “A Case Study in Patient Blood Management at a Private Community Hospital,” moderated by Rosemary Steuber, MT, SBB(ASCP)CM. This session presented a case study that chronicles the challenges met by a patient blood management program for a Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award hospital.
- “Point-of-Care Strategies for Patient Blood Management,” moderated by Pampee Young, MD, PhD. This session asked the question, “How can point-of-care testing be used to promote optimal and efficient use of blood products?” Testing for coagulopathic bleeding in real time, and the technologies of ROTEM and TEG, are part of the answer.
Thanks to AABB for serving its constituents with conspicuous professionalism and effectiveness—and for providing a superlative experience.
