Live Program Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Program Number: 22EL-712

Educational Track: Technical/Clinical
Topic: Patient Transfusion
Intended Audience: Directors, Hospitals, Medical Directors, Physicians, Students (MD, MT, SBB)

Faculty
(titles and affiliations at the time of the live program)
Director/Moderator: Amit Gokhale, MD, Transfusion Medicine Attending, Texas Children’s Hospital; Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Speakers: Cyril Jacquot, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Hematology Laboratory and Blood Donor Center; Associate Medical Director, Transfusion Medicine and Therapeutic Apheresis, Assistant Professor of Pathology, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s National Hospital, George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Washington, DC; Jennifer L. Chain, PhD, Director, Research & Development, Oklahoma Blood Institute, Oklahoma City, OK

Program Description
The ongoing availability of a safe blood supply is absolutely essential for health care. Due to circumstances such as increasing demand and an aging donor pool, the likelihood of blood shortage is increasing. The COVID 19 pandemic has also severely affected the blood supply chain. As a result, hospitals have needed to develop strategies to adapt to these blood supply shortages. Mitigation strategies that were proposed included additional criteria for transfusion orders review with more stringent guidelines. Splitting platelet units into 2 doses each were also considered to minimize platelet shortage. A possible solution that has been brought up is to pay donors, especially for platelets, to increase the blood product availability.

With regards to cellular therapy, approximately two-thirds of patients do not have a suitable human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched donor in their family and require an alternative donor to proceed with treatment. Unrelated-donor transplants remain the most common donor choice for allogeneic HSCT, and data from the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research show increasing numbers of unrelated-donor HSCTs performed each year since 2016.

During these unprecedented times, it has been a challenge to recruit blood and cellular therapies donors. This eCast will delve into current challenges faced by blood and cellular therapy donor centers and discuss possible solutions on how to increase recruitment of donors during these trying times.

Learning Objectives
After participating in this educational activity, participants should be able to:

Identify the causes of the current blood inventory shortage.
Discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic affected blood and cellular therapies donations.
Discuss the pros/cons of paid donors for blood and cellular therapies.
Describe possible solutions to increase blood and cellular therapies donations.

How to Claim Continuing Education Credit

Single Viewers: if you registered as a single viewer, complete the evaluation found on the "CE Information" tab after watching the video. By submitting the evaluation, you are attesting to watching the presentation in its entirety.
Group Viewers: This is applicable for groups/facilities that purchased Group Viewing access for this program (registration will be verified prior to processing a group viewing attendance log). Group Viewing Coordinators should submit the attendance log to eLearning@aabb.org within 72 hours of the completion/viewing date. Once AABB receives an attendance log, each participant on the attendance log will be granted access as a single viewer to this program and will be required to complete the evaluation in order to claim continuing education credit. Each participant will be required to have an AABB account in order to access this program/platform. If a participant does not have an account, he/she can create one using the same email address provided on the attendance log.

Dr. Cyril Jacquot MD, PhD

Children's National Hospital

Appearances