Transfusion Management is a field in its infancy. The term traditionally refers to hematologists applying their knowledge and expertise to supervising hospital blood banks. Blood banks are responsible to obtain blood products, including red blood cells, platelets, fresh frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate, usually from large, centralized, donor agencies, and release them for administration to patients on the order of a physician. Blood banking is therefore a passive field, which merely obtains blood from the supplier and supplies it to the consumer, albeit after performing the vital function of testing the blood to ensure it is apparently free of diseases which could potentially be transmitted to the individual receiving the blood.

Unfortunately, physicians are often compelled to tranfuse blood products, in particular platelets, plasma and cryoprecipitate, to bleeding patients, in order to stop their bleeding. Such transfusions are often ordered and administered in the absence of scientific evidence detailing which blood product will stop the patient from bleeding. Therefore, patients often receive more blood products than are truly necessary, thereby increasing risk and health care costs. This problem exists because there are no tests that rapidly determine the best therapy for a bleeding patient in ADVANCE of transfusion. Coagulation Sciences' Multiple Coagulation Test System will fill this need, rapidly determining the best therapy to arrest bleeding in a patient.