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Yes, I know the primary reason that we “do what we do” is to help connect donors and patients by providing life-saving blood products. In this case, I’m asking a less meaningful, but in some ways perhaps more provocative, question – How are blood centers organized and will that organizational structure allow us to continue…

You may already be aware, either by attending or hearing about it, that America’s Blood Centers just completed a very successful Summer Meeting (formerly the Interim Meeting). The meeting provided a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends while also making new ones. The BloodCenter of Wisconsin was the perfect host, even providing fantastic weather.…

Two recent reports appeared separately in the ABCNewsletter. The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Statistical Brief,#149 from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (http://1.usa.gov/14QoU6H) lists transfusion as the most frequent procedure performed in US hospitals during 2010, while the 2011 National Blood Collection and Utilization Survey (NBCUS) (www.hhs.gov/ash/bloodsafety/nbcus/) shows significant decreases in…

Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Human Services published the 2011 National Blood Collection and Utilization Survey (NBCUS) Report. The results will come as no surprise to blood bankers: blood collections are down, driven by the decrease in demand and perhaps the increase in patient blood management strategies. Overall, there has been about…

I admit I was a bit skeptical when I learned that ABC’s Meetings Committee had arranged to have Mark Fagan from Harvard deliver a two hour presentation on how the railroad industry offers us insights into our unprecedented environmental challenges. After all, what do railroads have in common with blood banks? Following the truly dynamic…

Sometimes when you seem overwhelmed by the challenges of the future, it is comforting to look back at the past. Not that the challenges of the past were less daunting, but knowing that we met those challenges and survived brings peace of mind. When I first came to the Community Blood Center in Kansas City…

There’s the proverbial expression of what happens when many bad variables converge to bring us a “perfect storm.” I wondered recently what we might call it if industry, regulatory, and economic factors all became aligned after decades of discussion to finally bring us pathogen reduction (PR) for US blood products. Were that to happen, might…

There is international consensus that risk-based decision making’s time has come to the blood community1. Diverse groups including, the Alliance of Blood Operators (an international group of national blood systems), and more recently, the Food and Drug Administration endorse it as the appropriate framework for creating transfusion safety policies. It’s hard to argue otherwise. In…

Last year, America’s Blood Centers conducted its SEQuaLS member satisfaction survey, where ABC member blood centers could pose questions to both ABC and the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers staff. One member asked, “Is there a way to make more grants available to member centers?” To provide the short answer – yes, the FABC is…

Either the strategic drivers shaping the blood community’s environment are at an all time high of flux, or I am suffering from bilateral uveitis – perhaps it is both. Regardless, my crystal ball has never been less clear.  I had the honor of chairing America’s Blood Centers’ Strategic Business Intelligence Task Force in 2005. The…