The Other Health Crisis We’re Not Talking About: A National Blood Shortage: - Miller-Keystone Blood Center - Tower Health - Penn State Health St. Joseph

The Other Health Crisis We’re Not Talking About: A National Blood Shortage

by Holly Yacynych, Marketing Manager Miller-Keystone Blood Center

While nearly everyone has been focused on the ongoing pandemic and resulting variants of the virus; another health crisis has already become a national emergency; the blood shortage.

With schools and businesses shuttering their doors and opting for remote or hybrid options, the ability to host on-site mobile blood drives abruptly ended with the start of the pandemic. Fears of donating, even today and over two-years into the pandemic, have minimized donor engagement and recruitment, and resulted in a dramatic loss in necessary and life-saving blood products. Social distancing guidelines for the safety of phlebotomists and blood donors remains a constant challenge limiting the number of individuals allowed within any blood donation facility. The rapid decline in blood collections was and continues to be felt far and wide.

Blood centers across the nation have gathered often to share their struggles and provide blood products to one another during one of the darkest periods of time. With no blood to spare or share, each faces the same mission-defeating crisis: how do we replenish and supply our hospitals and communities with necessary life-saving blood products? Even when hospitals temporarily paused elective surgeries due to the lack of supply of blood, which would presumably allow for more blood to be collected, another challenge arose. Traditionally, blood centers are often faced with a dwindling supply of blood during the summer vacation months and winter months. There is still no respite, and the crisis of the blood shortage is an on-going health situation with little attention or discussion.

With no organic or manufactured substitute for blood, volunteer blood donors hold the key to ending the other health crisis our nation and local communities are facing. Blood products such as platelets, plasma and red blood cells are vital in the

treatment for trauma victims, cancer patients for daily transfusions, surgical patients, premature babies and several more.

Blood donors are the unsung heroes for patients, and blood centers are desperate to pull them back.

Creating Hope And Answering The Call

Responding to and finding alternative solutions to collect blood for 29 regional hospitals throughout our communities in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey has been the focus, the challenge, and the steady success of Miller-Keystone Blood Center (MKBC). Headquartered in Bethlehem, PA, and recently opening its seventh donor center for a total of 17 collection sites, MKBC continues to find solutions to collect blood products needed daily by some of the largest healthcare networks in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

During the height of the pandemic, MKBC was one of the first blood centers who joined together with other blood centers across the nation and at the request of the FDA, with oversight by the Mayo Clinic, to collect Convalescent Plasma while still encouraging donors to donate blood. MKBC collected and distributed 5,000 doses of Convalescent Plasma to regional hospitals, military bases and other hospitals calling for the FDA authorized therapy for COVID-19. MKBC created hope, helped save lives through the generosity of donors and answered the call.

Finding Solutions Through Community

MKBC not only opened a new donor center in the heart of the city of Allentown, but also welcomed a new approach to offer donors the convenience of donating blood through a unique program. The Adopt-A-Day program allows businesses and schools to host a blood drive at any of the core donor centers located in Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Pittston, and Reading, PA, and Ewing, NJ. While MKBC still hosted over 2,000 mobile blood drives, the blood center touted 66,105 donors resulting in 121,000 blood products and components collected, processed, and distributed to support the blood center’s hospital partners in the last year. Yet, MKBC refrigerator shelves have a steady ebb and flow of a nearly full supply and depletion.

The pandemic halted and continues to hinder the flow of over 20% of MKBC’s blood supply procured through high schools, colleges, and universities in the counties the blood center serves. To recruit a younger generation and hope they, like their generational counterparts, understand and respond to the need to donate lifesaving blood paved the way for a new MKBC program. The High School Scholarship Program allows students to find alternate ways to host blood drives while it encourages and rewards students to donate blood.

Area businesses joined in their own efforts to donate blood through MKBC’s Local Leader program. Sixteen local businesses and groups each collected over 200 units of blood, with the highest collecting 794 units of blood, in 2021.

The Heroes Of A Blood Shortage

MKBC has a daily need to collect and process 450 units of blood to fulfill the rising demand to care for patients of 29 hospitals. The shortage of blood is constant. The demand is always high. The challenges to adapt to a changing lifestyle across the globe and maintain the safety of staff, donors and others is always at the forefront of MKBC’s mission. The focus is to save lives and that can only be achieved by the heroes of our community – dedicated blood donors. If everyone donated blood just three times in 12 months, there would not be a blood shortage – and yet only 5% donate blood regularly. Can you spare one pint of blood to save a life? You never know if the life you’re saving today through that one donated pint of blood will save a beloved family member, friend, or neighbor. The blood you donate here with MKBC, stays here to support your community. To schedule your blood donation and for a collection site nearest you, please call Miller-Keystone Blood Center at 800-B-A-DONOR (800-223-6667) or visit GIVEaPINT.org.

Blood Donation Critical to the Health of Our Community

by Thomas A. Geng, Jr., DO, MBA, FACS Trauma Program Medical Director Division Chief, Trauma, Acute Care Surgery and Surgical Critical Care

As blood centers across the US continue to face critical shortage of blood donations, Tower Health hospitals are also currently experiencing lower than normal blood inventory. Over the last several months we’ve been working with our colleagues from Miller-Keystone Blood Center to educate the community on the shortages and how regular donations can help those with a traumatic injury, cancer, sickle cell anemia, or babies in the NICU in their healing and recovery. The health system is committed to providing the care when, and where, our community needs it. Encouraging the community to donate blood to their local blood banks is critical to our promise of “advancing health and transforming lives.”

The most common need for blood transfusions includes cancer patients who may need one to two units per week, sickle cell anemia patients could receive six or more units per month, and trauma patients may need 12 to 60 units of blood because of their injuries. The health system also supports NICU babies with transfusions of O negative red blood cells whose donors must meet special criteria.

Blood products are a precious resource that are used to treat and save the lives of many individuals in our community. Far too often as a trauma surgeon I see the importance of having an adequate blood supply on hand. We never know when we will experience a mass casualty incident or when an accident victim will come to the Trauma Center. For trauma centers across the country, a tragic and unfortunate side effect of the pandemic has been a seeming increase in interpersonal violence, often including penetrating trauma, which can require significant amounts of blood product, to treat the patient.

I’m grateful Tower Health has been reminding individuals of the importance of blood donation. In response to the shortage Reading Hospital team members should be commended. In November, the hospital partnered with Miller-Keystone Blood Center to host an emergency blood drive and hospital team members registered for all 43 appointments in less than three hours.

I’ve shared information on my personal and social media profiles with links to the Miller-Keystone Blood donation website, encouraging friends and family to go donate. I hope you, my physician colleagues, will consider doing the same. Individuals interested in donating locally in Berks can schedule appointments at Miller-Keystone Blood Center of the American Red Cross.

Penn State Health St. Joseph Weighs in on National Blood Shortage

by Karen L. Chandler

January 2022 ushered in the worst blood shortage experienced by the American Red Cross in over ten years, and with it the potential risk to patients across the country.

Nationally, doctors are forced to choose which patient will receive a blood transfusion and which patient will wait until supplies have caught up with the demands.

Throughout the United States, The Red Cross is experiencing a ten-percent reduction in willing blood donors since the beginning of the pandemic and continues to battle with the cancellation of blood drives, staffing limitations, and donor concerns of infection.

While all blood types are needed, types O positive and O negative, as well as platelets are in urgent demand.

Locally, the Blood Bank of Penn State Health St. Joseph has been struggling with the availability of blood units for transfusions and notes that platelet availability is also at a minimum. Every request for a transfusion is reviewed by a medical director and the blood shortage caused some of those requests to be reduced from a whole unit of blood to only a half unit.

Although non-emergent surgeries were not postponed at Penn State Health, some physicians may have chosen to delay those surgeries due to the national emergent situation with no blood availability.

The Blood Bank staff operates under established policies according to national guidelines and standards, but as situations worsened, those polices were temporarily revised as needed and suggested. While any situations falling outside the standard polices are being closely monitored, Penn State Health St. Joseph reports the Blood Bank is mostly back to normal operations.

Unknown to many in the community, the Blood Bank explains that most blood units are only good for 42 days, with platelets lasting a scant five days, creating an unending process of the need for blood donations.

The staff of the Blood Bank at Penn State Health St. Joseph understands that potential donors may be afraid of the unknown and many people do not like needles. They hope to stress to the community that donors will not get sick from donating and will be watched over by a friendly and encouraging donation staff who will talk to all donors throughout the donation process to keep them at ease.