Key Words. Anemia • Anemia management • Patient blood management • Transfusion

The content of this article has been reviewed by independent peer reviewers to ensure that it is balanced, objective, and free from commercial bias. No financial relationships relevant to the content of this article have been disclosed by the independent peer reviewers. The objective of this paper is to introduce clinicians and health care professionals to the concept of patient blood management (PBM) and to explain the difference between PBM and the concept of “appropriate use ” of blood prod-ucts. The five reasons why modern health systems need to shift from product-focused transfusion practice to PBM are also presented. These are: the aging population with a leveraged demand for blood products opposed to a shrink-ing donor base; the growing awareness that transfusion is a complex service involving many different cost centers within a hospital and representing a multiple of the bloo