CBCO supplies 10 years of life-saving

The not-for-profit already has traveled a long way since its first year, when there were approximately 100 employees and 21,200 whole blood donations made. From that first blood draw Sept. 18, 1995, local individuals have made more than 500,000 donations.

But the number of blood transfusions needed keeps climbing.

The organization supplies all of the blood and blood products needed by its 37 member hospitals in southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas and southeastern Kansas. It’s a task that requires 275 donations a day.

According to center officials, CBCO collected nearly 68,000 donations – 186 per day – in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30.

“There’s a constant need to get the public to participate in their very own blood center,” said Executive Director Don Thomson.

Today, CBCO employs 216 and has around 5,000 volunteers, “not counting the donors, which are all volunteers, too,” said Chris Pilgrim, marketing manager.

Blood sale revenues, its sole funding source, reached $16.6 million last fiscal year.

Ozarks asset

The organization was founded after the Red Cross shifted its blood distribution to a centralized location in Washington, D.C.

“So when we no longer had control of that vital community asset … we had to create another entity,” Thomson said.

Its three key objectives – financial solvency, Food and Drug Administration licensure and local self-sufficiency for blood needs – were met within CBCO’s first eight years. The first goal took a mere 17 months, and the FDA license was obtained by December 1999. Self sufficiency was achieved in December 2003, Thomson said. CBCO funds itself by charging a fee for the products it provides.

“We were very, very close for a long time. But you have to understand that if the demand is for 1,000 units, you have to have 1,100. Because when we say self-sufficient, we mean type-specific,” Thomson said. “You’re always going to have to have extra to be type-specific.”

The Ozarks’ need for blood and blood supplies is growing more rapidly than the national trend, Pilgrim said.

This can be attributed to the movement of people into the community, along with advancements in local medical capabilities, Thomson said.

“The area hospitals are more sophisticated than ever before. They’re able to do more procedures than ever before. So the need for blood to provide for these procedures goes up,” Pilgrim said.

Add the national trend of an aging population, and Thomson said he expects the need for blood products to increase 30 percent in the next decade.

The influx of soon-to-be-seniors creates a recruiting challenge for CBCO.

“Generally, as the population ages, the donor base ages as well. It becomes a challenge to recruit new donors – and that becomes the future of the blood business,” Pilgrim said.

CBCO has become aggressive in marketing to high schools and universities for this reason, Pilgrim said. “We want to introduce those people into a program of giving … to where they’ll become donors for life,” he added.

Medical advancements

Certain medical advancements have helped to alleviate the pressure for both CBCO and its donors.

In the past decade, there have been advancements in the apheresis process, which involves the removal of whole blood, separation of components such as red blood cells or platelets and the return of the unused portion of blood back to the donor.

“So a person who comes in and gives blood once or twice a year, we can get two donations of red blood cells at one time from them. They can come in and essentially make four donations in two trips. It’s just another way to expand the donor population,” Thomson said.

Donor Frank Rossetter, who’s semiretired but teaches at Drury University and Ozarks Technical Community College, said that he has noticed positive medical changes in the past decade. He’s been donating blood since 1974.

“The technology of the machines and the computerized parts of the machines have gotten much smoother. They’re faster,” Rossetter said.

On the horizon is the advent of artificial blood substitutes, Pilgrim said.

“They’re in the field-testing level. However, best case scenario, those artificial blood substitutes are going to be used as kind of a stop-gap measure,” Pilgrim said. “It won’t really replace what our donors need to do.”

And because the product has a short shelf life – as little as five days for platelets and 42 days for red blood cells (plasma can last as long as a year if its frozen) – there is a continual need for donations.

“I think, down deep, I think the reason I keep coming back is that I know it’s needed. It makes me feel good,” Rossetter said.

It seems that donors like Rossetter have every reason to feel good: “If we can talk you into giving a unit of blood today, it will make a difference in somebody’s life tomorrow. How neat is that?” Thomson said.

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