What is a crucial step for safe administration of a blood transfusion?

Verifying the patient's identity and blood type before the administration of a blood transfusion is a critical step to ensure safety. This process typically involves checking the patient's identification bracelet against the blood bag label and confirming the proper blood type compatibility. This step is essential in preventing potential transfusion reactions, which can occur if a patient receives the wrong blood type.

Ensuring the correct identity and blood type minimizes the risk of hemolytic reactions, which can lead to serious complications such as kidney failure or even death. It is part of the "five rights" of medication administration, emphasizing that the right patient receives the right product.

Other considerations, such as the method of infusion, the size of the needle, and pre-medication, are important in different contexts but do not hold the same level of critical importance in ensuring immediate transfusion safety as verifying identity and type.