Blood Center: The Indiana Blood Center is located at 2021 South Third Street in Terre Haute.
TERRE HAUTE — Demand for blood transfusions has fallen by one fourth in recent months for the Indiana Blood Center, causing it to cut staff, look for new revenues, freeze some salaries and widen the geographic area of its bloodmobile collections.
The reason is that fewer people are going into hospitals for transfusions, Wendy Mehringer, chief marketing officer at Indiana Blood Center, said Monday. And patients who do go in have typically received transfusions in lesser amounts, further decreasing demand.
The Indiana Blood Center counts the decrease at 24 percent less than the previous fiscal year.
The Blood Center caters to more than 60 hospitals and holds transactional relationships with them by selling blood components, Mehringer said. Hospitals have “standing orders,” which let the Blood Center project approximately how much blood will be needed over the next year, based on trends at the hospitals.
The decline in transfusions has led to 45 Blood Center staff positions being cut to balance the budget. “These positions are in the blood collection and donor recruitment areas,” Mehringer said. “The demand for blood collection has decreased, so the staff we have in that area decreased.”
Bloodmobile operations in Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Noblesville will broaden their geographic areas of reach in response to the decreases.
“Seventy-five percent of blood donated comes from box trucks and vans set up at high schools, colleges, stores, etc.,” Mehringer said. “Due to the expense cuts, we had to streamline those into three locations instead of six.”
Among other budgets cuts are closing of the Blood Center’s Avon donor center, freezing management salaries and ending the center’s therapeutic phlebotomy program.
At the same time, the Blood Center is looking into alternative sources to produce the revenue being lost by a decreased demand in blood, Mehringer said.
One alternative is through services such as lab screenings.
“We do screenings for centers in Michigan, Cincinnati and Oklahoma,” she said. “It is a viable business line for us, and we are looking to add more to the list.”
Another alternative is expanding its role as a collection site to aid prostate cancer patients, Mehringer added. Currently, the Blood Center serves as a collection site for Dendreon, a pharmaceutical company. The Blood Center collects white blood cells and sends the components to the company. The components are collected to produce Provenge, a drug prescribed to prostate cancer patients.
“We are able serve as a collection site for the company, which produces extra revenue,” she added. “It is a very small portion of what we do, but there are more opportunities to reach out into the life sciences area.”
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