News & Events | Newsline Newsletter: Blood Center Prominent at AABB Annual Meeting

Blood Center Prominent at AABB Annual Meeting
When thousands of physicians, scientists, administrators, medical technologists, blood donor recruiters and public relations staff converged on San Diego last November for the American Association of Blood Banks Annual Meeting, none of the more than 2,200 participating institutions was better represented than Puget Sound Blood Center.

If, as author Jack Easterli once observed, “Leadership demands visibility,” then the Blood Center certainly enhanced its role as a leader with active and prominent participation at the AABB conference.

The Blood Center’s Dr. Theresa Nester (left) explains her poster to Chris Lehman, M.D., of the University of Utah.

Led by executive vice presidents of medicine, operations and research, Thomas Price, M.D., D. Michael Strong, Ph.D., and Sherrill Slichter, M.D., respectively, the Blood Center contingent filled leadership roles as board member, faculty and lecturers, session moderators, committee leaders and participants, abstract authors and poster presenters.

On the first day of the conference, Nov. 1, Dr. Slichter delivered her talk, “Opportunities for Improving Platelet Therapy,” during the session on bacterial contamination. She also accepted an invitation to co-moderate the Platelet Science oral abstract session during which six abstracts were presented.

Dr. Price delivered two posters, one on granulocyte transfusions and another on adverse effects of marrow donation. A member of the AABB Standards committee and board member of AABB’s research funding arm, National Blood Foundation Trust, Dr. Price is also on the editorial board of TRANSFUSION, the monthly peer-reviewed journal of AABB.

On the last day of the conference, Dr. Strong, who has been on the board for the last three years, was elected secretary/treasurer of AABB, which includes 8,500 individual members. The position also carries a seat on the executive committee, which conducts the planning for AABB as a whole.

Establishing Standards
“The organization represents blood banking and transfusion and transplantation medicine in North America,” says Dr. Strong. “And in recent years, it has taken on an international role as well, with more and more international members joining, currently representing 80 countries.

“AABB is the primary place for education and standard setting for blood banking and transfusion medicine,” he adds. “It plays a prominent role in assessment and accreditation for institutions in the areas that it serves: donor centers, transfusion services, paternity testing laboratories, red cell reference labs, and perioperative and blood cell salvage operations.

“There is an assessment and accreditation process,” he notes. In fact, 2003 marked the 45th anniversary of the AABB Accreditation Program. It was the first and only voluntary peer-review assessment program specifically for the blood services community. Its goal from the beginning was “to help blood banks and transfusion services achieve uniformly safe and effective blood transfusions across the United States,” according to an official AABB newspaper.

More than 800 members volunteer time and expertise to conduct assessments. “In fact,” says Dr. Strong, “many Blood Center employees are assessors for AABB; they go out and inspect those organizations that seek membership or renewal and they recommend or cite corrective actions as necessary, using the standards of AABB.”

The Blood Center, for instance, has had its transfusion service, cord blood/stem cell program and red cell reference program inspected and accredited through AABB. “It’s really a peer review process,” says Dr. Strong.

“We have a lot of employees that have served on various committees, provided scientific input for AABB and most of our physicians and scientists have given presentations at AABB educational meetings, including Drs. Slichter, Price, (Jo Anna) Reems and (Terry) Gernsheimer. I gave a talk on hepatitis B in one of the scientific sessions. And we had quite a number of posters that were accepted at the annual meeting.”

Acceptance is not automatic. “The way it works is that there is a call for abstracts early in the year,” Dr. Strong explains. “People submit abstracts about information they have gathered and those are reviewed by the appropriate committees for acceptance or rejection, for poster presentation or oral presentation.”

While the oral presentations are considered to be more significant, acceptance of either presentation form is recognized as valuable. “Because not all are accepted,” says Dr. Strong.

Cutting Edge
Blood centers are inspected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and AABB. The first is regulatory, the latter voluntary.

“It’s a real advantage to have a peer group come in, look at what you’re doing and make suggestions,” Dr. Strong says. “There tends to be more collegiality; if they know someone else is doing it a little better, they’ll let us know and if we’re doing something that they think is great, they’ll share that information with other members. There’s just more of a collegial approach with a volunteer organization. AABB standards assessments are also more comprehensive than FDA inspections, which are limited to specific regulatory requirements.”

Education is another hallmark of AABB. Its mission is: “To establish and promote the highest standard of care for patients and donors in all aspects of blood banking; transfusion medicine; hematopoietic, cellular and gene therapies; and tissue transplantation.” And education is one way to accomplish that.

“It’s really an advantage to know you’re keeping up with the state of the art,” notes Dr. Strong. “Of course, our hope is that we are actually on the cutting edge of establishing standards and practices. And in many cases, we are.

“That’s one of the things that we at the Blood Center feel is important in keeping us in a leadership role.”

Other Blood Center staff participated at the AABB Annual Meeting as follows: