The Department of Health and Human Services
Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability (ACBTSA) met on Tuesday and Wednesday to address two challenges facing the blood community: the lack of real-time data on blood availability, utilization and hemovigilance; and threats to the blood system supply chain.
AABB’s chief executive officer Debra BenAvram delivered AABB’s
remarks, which encouraged the ACBTSA to: (1) ensure that its recommendations address opportunities to integrate potential solutions and the blood supply into all preparedness and response policies; (2) make recommendations that encourage interagency collaboration related to solutions that may benefit multiple sectors of the public health system; and (3) include in its recommendations the resources needed to establish, implement and maintain each solution.
BenAvram concluded her statement by emphasizing that adversities beyond the pandemic continue to jeopardize blood availability and thanked the ACBTSA for its work to address these complex challenges. “We commend the ACBTSA for its leadership in exploring solutions that can strengthen the resiliency of the blood supply and offer our support and assistance in advancing these important efforts,” BenAvram said.
On Wednesday, Leo DeBandi, vice-chair of the AABB Interorganizational Task Force on Domestic Disasters and Acts of Terrorism,
joined the ACBTSA meeting to discuss how challenges with data affect the work of the Task Force.
DeBandi shared that the blood inventory reports that the Task Force receives are not uniform across the industry, with differences in some of the formulas used to assess the number of days’ supply on hand. Notably, these national blood availability estimates do not allow for visibility into regional blood availability. Furthermore, these data account for red blood cells only and do not capture platelet availability, nor do they reflect collections by hospital-based blood collection establishments.
“The inventories held by hospitals are important for disaster planning and response because the blood immediately available for responding to disasters is the blood already on hospitals’ shelves,” DeBandi said. “While blood centers do not often have real-time visibility into hospitals’ inventories, the Task Force relies on blood centers for that assessment.”
DeBandi reiterated the blood community’s recommendation that the Department of Health and Human Services dedicate funding to modernize the system used to report the available blood supply and to maintain an automated system that includes real-time, comprehensive, accurate data on blood inventories. DeBandi noted that the nation had a unique opportunity to appreciate the benefits of comprehensive, transparent data through its experience developing and managing the inventory of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP).
“The collections-based funding model for developing and managing the inventory of CCP helped support the establishment of a uniform, automatic reporting infrastructure,” DeBandi said. “This is different from the funding model for other blood products, and the nation has not yet made a similar investment in the data infrastructure related to the blood supply.”
DeBandi concluded by emphasizing that, while data is important for disaster response, the Task Force often confronts additional logistical challenges during emergencies. He encouraged the ACBTSA to recommend that policymakers ensure blood collection establishments, the Task Force and considerations related to the safety and availability of the blood supply are integrated into federal, state, and local pandemic and disaster preparedness and response policies.