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Your Community Blood Bank's Wish List
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Every single day, the lives of over 425 patients in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco and Pinellas Counties , depend on your
not-for-profit community blood bank, Florida Blood Services, to provide blood or blood components. At Tampa Bay 's 38
hospitals and over 80 ambulatory care centers, there is a significant need for blood. There is often no thought given
to the efforts required to meet the community's needs for this precious resource, for which there is NO substitute.
It takes more than 600 dedicated employees, 26 bloodmobile vehicles, 13 fixed donor centers, a major testing laboratory
and an ongoing transport system to supply these patients every day. There is also a new Biotechnology Research Center
to detect and eliminate viruses and other diseases in donor blood to assure the safety and quality of the community blood supply.
To help keep the cost of blood as low as possible to patients and to maintain our high quality of service to the community, we must
raise support regularly for many needs.
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To help Your Community Blood Bank call
Jane Riley Leach, President, at (727) 568-2231.
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Disaster Preparedness
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In An Emergency
FBS is an emergency response organization as a blood distribution hub for Florida and surrounding regions. This means
that maintaining an organization during threats, both man-made and natural, is a high priority. Disaster equipment
needed includes: hurricane film on headquarters to protect the laboratories and the Pasco and Manatee Donor Centers,
refrigerated storage space/Pasco, emergency generator/Brandon Disaster Recovery Site, satellite phones, flatbed and
refrigerated equipment with vehicle to pull portable freezer trailer, amenities for personnel/volunteers who man
fixed sites during a disaster, survival kits and other supplies and equipment.
$650,000
Protecting Patients
To ensure patients receive necessary transfusion support, donor and patient records must be accessible at all times. FBS
is initiating a "hot site" for times of emergencies/disasters, such as hurricanes or homeland security incidents. This
would allow for "real-time", uninterrupted management of more than 400,000 donors in our active database and provide
adjunct processing of blood for surgical patients at two major Category I Advanced Trauma Emergency Centers - Tampa General
and St. Joseph's Hospitals.
$50,000
Emergency Electricity
To prevent damaging sensitive equipment, our blood testing and processing laboratories need an Uninterrupted Power Supply
(high-energy batteries) to eliminate peaks and valleys in the power flow during electrical interruptions or outages before
the emergency generator is activated.
$65,000
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Capital
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To be more accessible to blood donors, FBS needs to expand its network of fixed donor centers in leased
locations. The capital cost of constructing and equipping each new fixed donor room is
$150,000.
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Community Education
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The blood banking process is complex and it relies on education at every level. In 2004, over 40,000 educational hours were
logged. The education program prepares our "next generation" of blood donors through programs such as FBS' High School
Leadership Program, More Health and "My Blood, Your Blood". This focus is important because it bridges the gap that our
most loyal donors, the WWII-era veterans and their immediate families, are leaving as they become ineligible to donate.
$89,000
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Donor Services
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Free-to-Donor Cholesterol Program
Recruiting the necessary 750+ blood donors is a challenge. One effective draw is to provide cholesterol results after
each donation. Learning and monitoring one's cholesterol level is an important aspect in keeping Tampa Bay healthy.
$5,000 Monthly
Blood Donor Comfort
Blood components can take more than an hour to donate and can create side effects like the shivers. At each donor center
and in the Therapeutics Department, items like donor chairs, electric blankets, and other items that make the experience
more comfortable are needed at 13 fixed sites.
$10,000
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Patient Services
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Bone Marrow Donor Initiative
Because individuals of minority descent face extreme difficulty in finding an appropriate genetic match when needing
a bone marrow transfusion, FBS, a founder of the National Marrow Donor Program, needs to expand the diversity of its
registered marrow donors.
12,000 individuals are needed to increase local participation to 50,000 volunteer donors,
cost of $65 per donor for HLA-type testing.
Therapeutic Transfusion Equipment
More than 180 patients a month must undergo a plasma exchange, red cell exchange, leukocyte reduction or Stem Cell donation
using FBS' specialized therapeutic medicine equipment to treat different types of cancer, leukemia, organ transplant patients
and other diseases. More equipment is needed to satisfy the increasing demand for this type of medical treatment.
$65,000
Laboratory Centrifuge
Our laboratories operate 24 hours a day and process hundreds of thousands of blood components each year. A centrifuge is a
laboratory machine that separates the blood components allowing each blood donation to save three lives! Nine centrifuges
are needed immediately to replace older machines.
$225,000
Refrigeration Monitoring
Just as you would not give spoiled milk to a newborn, you would not give a compromised blood unit to someone. A new and
improved 24 hour/7 day a week, centralized temperature-monitoring system at each blood depot (approximately 118 sensors)
ensures that immediate response can be given when the temperature is not within specified ranges.
$120,000
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Transportation
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Bloodmobiles
More than 75 percent of FBS' 750 blood donors every week day donate during bloodmobile visits. Three new, state-of-the-art
bloodmobiles ($200,000 each) are needed to expand the fleet and replace older, 25-31 year-old vehicles.
$600,000
Getting the Blood to Patients
More than 425 patients need life-saving or life-sustaining blood or blood components every day in the Tampa Bay area. FBS
needs to purchase two blood courier vehicles to expand the blood transport fleet or replace older vehicles.
$60,000
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