The collection of blood is now considered as one of the most crucial steps on the way which leads to a safe and adequate supply of blood products. The organisations responsible for the collection of blood evolved from transfusion services to regional blood banks which prepare, store and distribute blood components instead of whole blood. The use of blood components as well as safety aspects have led to changes in the following areas of blood collection:
Non paid donorshipHepatitis B transmission by blood products started the suspicion towards paid donorship which was renewed when HIV infection was shown to be mainly due to transmission by risk behaviour. Recently it was confirmed that the incidence of contamination with blood born diseases was lower in products derived from blood of non paid volunteer donors. Non paid donorship is promoted when donors are recruited in small communities, where non profit organisations, like the Red Cross, organize the collection in the direct vicinity of the donors' residences. Mobile teams, from regional bloodbanks select, collect, store and transport blood with additional help of local volunteer workers. Donors like to give blood at %on-working" hours, near their homes acknowledged by their fellow citizens or family. In those countries where the collection of blood was based on these principles, self sufficiency could be reached with non paid donors as the only source of blood (Belgium, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland). WHO and the Council of Europe now strongly support a system of blood collection exclusively based on the non paid donation of blood to improve the safety of blood products.
Centralized registration of donorsComputers facilitated the centralization of donor-and donation-registration. Input of personal data, health check results, blood groups and test results is now common practice in bloodbank routine. This system allows a centralized call up for every donor, recently or temporarily deferred donors, barring of excluded donors and prevention of loss of a donor after a change of address. Retrieval or input of data may be done directly on the spot of donation by lap top computers or secondarily by printing the relevant information in bar code on the form used to call up the donor and sticking preprinted bar coded labels on the same form with the relevant donation information. The donor and donation information is fed into the mainframe computer either by unloading the memory of the lap top or by reading the barcodes from the call up form after the blood collection. This information is then available as part of the documentation needed for the release of components prepared from the blood which was collected and processed. Moreover these data are used to update the donor records needed for the next collection of blood.
Uniform donor selection criteria and medical carePrior to each donation a medical check on the health of the donor is now compulsory. The medical check is meant to prevent any adverse effect of the donation on the donor and to ...
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