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July 30, 2010

Indiana Blood Center knows the need for its service is great

Sue Loughlin The Tribune-Star

INDIANAPOLIS — This is the first story in a two-part series.

When the Indiana Blood Center received a “stat” call for platelets Tuesday, distribution staff knew they had to respond quickly.

Someone’s life depended on it.

The call for two units of platelets came from an Indianapolis hospital. “We got it out the door and a driver on the way in eight minutes,” said Sandy Dale, distribution manager at the Indiana Blood Center in Indianapolis.

Platelets are needed for blood to clot properly. They are used to correct low platelet counts in patients undergoing chemotherapy or other conditions in which the patient loses platelets, such as massive trauma.

“Stat” means IBC must get the blood there as soon as possible because there’s a medical emergency, Dale said. “We don’t always know what it’s needed for. If it’s stat, it could be anything,” whether a surgery or an accident/trauma case.

The distribution department is staffed 24/7 to ensure any emergency need for blood is met.

The nonprofit, independent Indiana Blood Center, which has its main branch in Indianapolis, supplies blood and blood components to 66 Indiana hospitals throughout the state, including Union and Terre Haute Regional, said Wendy Mehringer, Indiana Blood Center spokeswoman.

The Terre Haute IBC branch, which has a donor center/distribution site, is at 2021 S. Third St.

Blood donated and processed through the Indiana Blood Center system “will stay in Indiana,” Mehringer said.

Each day, the Indiana Blood Center supplies more than 550 units of blood to the 66 Indiana hospitals it serves. “Our work truly saves lives,” she said.

While a stable, continuous supply is the goal, that can be more challenging at certain times of year, particularly during the summer, when people — and donors — are on vacation.

Finding donors, conducting drives and replenishing the supply is a never-ending job, Mehringer said.

People don’t necessarily understand how blood is supplied to hospitals, and they may not realize the role of blood centers and the critical importance of individual donors.

Some people believe blood comes from the hospitals and “it’s always there,” she said. In reality, “Anything transfused to a patient comes from a volunteer blood donor.”

The need for blood is great. About 5 million people each year in the United States get blood transfusions.

Blood is needed by hospitals and emergency treatment facilities for patients with cancer and other diseases, for organ transplant recipients, for those undergoing surgery and for accident/trauma victims.

Coronary bypass surgery requires one to five units; other open-heart surgery requires up to 25 units; auto accidents or gunshot wounds may need up to 50 units; and fractured hip/joint replacements, two to five units. An organ transplant requires five to 200 units.

Despite research, there are no substitutes for blood.

The Indiana Blood Center relies on volunteer donors who give at nine donation centers (or mobile units). Four of the donation centers are in the Indianapolis area, while others are located in Terre Haute, Lafayette, Avon, Columbus and Muncie.

The Indiana Blood Center recruits organizations to host blood drives, and it then collects, tests, processes, labels and distributes the blood. All donated blood is taken for testing and processing to the Indiana Blood Center main branch at 3450 N. Meridian St. in Indianapolis before it is distributed.

Each unit of blood, which is just less than a pint, can be separated into four components: red cells, plasma, cryoprecipitate and platelets. One donation can benefit multiple patients.

The Indiana Blood Center has contracts to provide blood to six Wabash Valley hospitals in a five-county area: Union Hospital, Union Hospital-Clinton, Terre Haute Regional Hospital, St. Vincent Clay Hospital, Sullivan County Community Hospital and Greene County Hospital, as well as Lifeline in Terre Haute.

“Donating to the Indiana Blood Center means you are ensuring a stable supply in your [Terre Haute] area,” Mehringer said.

A courier service makes daily trips between Terre Haute and Indianapolis, providing standing orders needed by hospitals and transporting donated blood to the Indianapolis processing center.

Between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010, the Indiana Blood Center supplied 12,619 units of red blood cells to the six hospitals and to Lifeline. From January 2009 to May 2010, there were 7,802 unique donors in Clay, Parke, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo counties. (A unique donor may have given more than once.)

The average donor gives blood between 1.4 and 1.7 times per year, said Byron Buhner, Indiana Blood Center chief executive officer. Some donors give blood every 56 days, “while some donors, like myself, donate two or three times per year,” he said.

The Blood Center has about 105,000 active donors statewide. Last year, the Indiana Blood Center staged blood drives in 82 of 92 Indiana counties.

While the need is always there, supplies tend to dwindle in the summer, when many people take vacations. A refrigerated storage unit at the Indianapolis distribution center might have shelves fully stocked at other times of year; on Tuesday, many shelves were empty. 

Despite the urgent need for new donors, only about 5 percent of healthy Americans donate blood each year. “Our challenge as a blood center is to encourage donor frequency,” or the number of times donors give blood each year, Mehringer said.

If current donors would give an average of two or more times per year, “That would work wonders in encouraging a stable supply,” she said. Mehringer defined a stable supply as 1,800 to 2,000 units of blood at any one time, or about a three-day supply.

But there also must be enough of each blood type, she said.

The Indiana Blood Center is an independent, nonprofit organization; its revenue comes from the processing fee it charges for blood. Hospitals pay $220 for a unit of red blood cells.

“We are a cost-recovery organization,” Mehringer said. The fee is based on the cost to produce a unit of blood, but it also includes a margin that enables the Blood Center to invest in new equipment, such as testing equipment, and to do marketing/promotions.

The Indiana Blood Center, originally called the Community Blood Bank of Marion County, began in 1952, serving five Marion County hospitals. In 1986, it became the Indiana Blood Center. “Our footprint has grown as demand has grown,” Mehringer said.

It is licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Indiana State Department of Health, and it is accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks.

Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.

Coming Sunday: “Roll up your sleeve” is heard on both ends of the blood donation process, by the donor as well as the recipient, but what happens in between? Tribune-Star reporter Sue Loughlin and photographers Jim Avelis and Bob Poynter follow the circular trail.

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