Red Cross region celebrates 60 years of helping save lives

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The Greater Alleghenies Blood Services Region of the American Red Cross celebrates its birthday today and has quite a lot to show for itself at 60 years old.

Advances in technologies and collection methods have turned a weekly collection goal of 100 pints of blood in 1949 to collecting almost 1,000 units per weekday. Blood that used to be collected in glass bottles is now stored in plastic bags to enable blood component therapy, and it can be divided into separate parts for multiple uses. And younger donors are being targeted to teach them early about the process that could save someone's life.

''It's just wonderful how long the Red Cross has provided blood services to the community. I think looking forward we have to make sure we continue to reach new audiences, reach out to the youth to get them engaged in blood donation earlier,'' said John Hagins, chief executive officer of the Greater Alleghenies Region. ''We also have to make sure that we provide the methods for making sure the communities stay involved in blood donation and understand there is no substitute, even after 60 years of blood donation. It has to be a voluntary contribution that one person makes to another person, and that person many times is an unknown stranger.''

Chartered June 15, 1949, the region's blood services program formed when the Johnstown Red Cross chapter was dedicated as a Red Cross blood center. It incorporated 11 other Red Cross chapters from Blair, Cambria, Clearfield, Indiana and Somerset counties, Moshannon, Mt. Pleasant, New Kensington, Tyrone, Westmoreland and Windber.

Marianne Spampinato, regional communications director. ''When you see the map, we're going down from Bellefonte, Pa., all the way to Kentucky, from the northeast to the southeast. It's quite a lot of territory. We are the largest Red Cross blood region in the smallest metropolitan area.''

Over the years, the Johnstown blood region expanded and picked up territories in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and around the state. It consolidated with the western Pennsylvania blood region in 1991, and the tri-state blood region in 1999, when it formally became the greater Alleghenies region, with headquarters in Johnstown. It now serves 97 hospitals across 100 counties and collects approximately 230,000 donations in a year. Since the Indiana County Red Cross chapter opened its blood center on Kolter Drive in October 2008, officials said it has collected more than 500 pints of blood.

''I think the growth is a testament to the value that hospitals saw in having a regional product provider instead of conducting that service on their own, and also in the effectiveness we've had doing that,'' Spampinato said.

Throughout the region's history, there have been significant changes to the blood services program, mostly with technology. Up until the 1980s, blood was only screened for syphilis and hepatitis B, Spampinato said. Now the blood is screened for a dozen diseases along the lines of hepatitis and HIV, the West Nile virus during certain seasons, and several other diseases. Extensive questionnaires must be completed by donors who can be deferred for donation, such as based on where they recently traveled, to make it even safer. Such enhancements in the blood testing and screening process, Spampinato said, have significantly closed the window of the time when a blood recipient could be infected or exposed to a disease.

''There's a lot less risk just because of the technology we have. Even with the small window that exists, the technology and our use of it and expanding the screening process, the blood supply today is truly safer than it ever has been and (donation) is as safe as possible,'' she said.

Other technologies have affected how the donated product is used. In addition to taking whole blood, labs can now pull out certain parts of a person's blood - such as the platelets or red blood cells - and pump the rest of it back to the donor through a process called apheresis. So, for example, a hemophiliac could receive just plasma or a cancer patient could get just platelets from the donated blood. The Red Cross also has double red cell technology in which only the amount of blood the equivalent of two red blood cells is taken, which allows those giving to donate critical product less often.

You have some patients who only need certain parts of blood,'' Spampinato said of new technology. ''It enabled us to get the precise product that a specific patient needs. ... It has opened doors which in turn has spiked usage because there is more potential types of ways that patients can be helped.''

Changes in eligibility requirements have opened up the donor pool. In the 1960s and 1970s, the age range for donors was 18-59 years old. In recent years donors as young as 16, with parental consent, are allowed to donate in four of the region's six states, and there is no age cap for donors as long as they are in good health.

As of an inventory last week, Spampinato said the region has a one day supply of O-negative blood and less than a two-day supply for A-negative and B-negative. Ideally, she said, the goal is to have five days worth of all types.

At least two dozen blood collection operations are run daily in the region, Spampinato said, with some on weekends. A quarter of the region's annual collections are given at high schools, colleges and universities, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania was the first college in western Pennsylvania to hold a Red Cross blood drive in 1951.

But that reliance on the school settings for collection also puts the Red Cross in a bind during the summer when school is out of sessions and more people are on vacations and not showing up at drives. So collection officials are trying to drum up support for summer donors.

''Our summer months are the times we need the most blood because people are out on the roads and the parks and accidents happen,'' said Gina Lehman, local blood services director for Indiana County. ''But the donors aren't coming out to the drives. We have blood drives throughout the county all summer.''

The Indiana blood center holds drives at its office on Kolter Drive on the second and fourth Monday of the month, in addition to drives around the county.

To mark its birthday, the Greater Alleghenies region is offering a chance for a daily $60 gift card drawing to all those present who donate blood at a Red Cross blood drive or center in June.

To be eligible to give blood, donors must be at least 17 years old, or 16 with parental consent, weigh at least 110 pounds and be in generally good health.

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