How Hospitals Respond to Blood Shortages: Strategies and Actions
- The American Red Cross has announced there is a critical blood shortage nationwide.
- During a blood shortage, hospitals have to delay elective surgeries so they can prioritize available donated blood for trauma, transplants, and oncology patients.
- We don’t currently have a synthetic blood product to help us deal with donation shortages, but emerging technology like bloodless surgery can lower blood needs.
When was the last time you gave blood? That’s a question that blood centers across the nation want to ask you right now after the American Red Cross announced that donated blood levels are critically low—especially type O and platelets.
Severe weather and respiratory virus season are proving to be major roadblocks for donations. However, even without those hurdles, the Red Cross says that blood donations are down 40%.
With frequent shortages, what happens in hospitals when there isn’t enough blood to help all the patients in need? Here’s what experts say.
Who Gets Donated Blood If the Supply Is Low?
During a blood shortage, most hospitals will choose to delay elective surgeries first, Daniel Parra, a spokesperson for the American Red Cross, told Verywell. Elective surgeries include procedures like joint replacements and plastic surgery—basically, anything that is not time-sensitive.
“In a worst-case scenario, a physician may have to forego performing a more serious procedure for a patient because of a shortage of blood,” said Parra. “We are doing everything we can to minimize any impact of this shortage on hospital patients.”
If there’s a shortage, blood centers often ask hospitals to lower their standard stocks of blood, Daniela Hermelin, MD, chief medical officer of ImpactLife, an independent community blood center serving Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin, told Verywell.
Type O negative blood, the universal donor, is the most important to have on hand because any patient in need can safely receive it.1 Type O negative blood is critical in trauma cases when there often isn’t enough time to find out a patient’s blood type.
For other procedures, Hermelin said that providers work with blood centers to be more strategic about ordering blood. For example, as long as a patient is stable, a provider may encourage them to wait to have surgery or get blood transfusions.
“For those that require urgent blood in high amounts, we ask that hospital decision makers communicate in advance so that instead of ordering in bulk and for longer durations, to order in spurts,” she said.
When medical directors have to prioritize surgeries, Hermelin explained that three procedures always take precedence: trauma, vascular transplant, and gastrointestinal bleeding. Time is a critical factor in all of these procedures. Organ transplants, in particular, are very time-sensitive and cannot wait for blood supplies to catch up.
Blood Shortages and Cancer Care
Many cancer and hematology patients need blood transfusions as part of their treatment. To help make sure they have access to donated blood, hematology and oncology departments will also get preference during extreme shortages, according to Hermelin.
“They may not be getting transfused major quantities of blood, but they are being transfused normally in a prophylactic way to prevent spontaneous bleeding or strokes,” said Hermelin.
While it makes sense that the most urgent surgeries will always take precedence when there is a shortage of blood, putting off elective surgeries still has a significant effect on hospitals financially and logistically, she added.
Can We Get More Blood Without Donations?
Scientists are researching ways to make synthetic human blood, but these alternatives to donated blood are still largely theoretical. For example, a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine was granted $46 million in funding in 2023 to develop a shelf-stable blood product to use in military battle, but the end product is several years away from being realized.
In the meantime, Hermelin said bloodless surgery is the closest compromise we have. The method, in which providers use techniques that would limit the need for blood products, is common among patients who refuse blood transfusions based on their religious beliefs.3
“It’s part of what we call patient blood management. It really means that the surgeon is being a little more careful about how making sure all the knots are tied in order to prevent bleeding,” said Hermelin.
Although bloodless surgeries could be an option for patients in need of procedures, it does not help patients who need transfusions as prophylaxis for a bleeding disorder or cancer treatment.
Every 2 seconds, someone in the United States needs donated blood or platelets. When you give, your donated blood can actually help save more than one patient in need.
If you are able to give, consider stopping by a local blood drive. If you’re not sure if you are eligible to donate blood, the Red Cross website has a list of the requirements, or you can check with your healthcare provider.
What This Means For You
During a blood shortage, hospitals have to be strategic about their donated blood supply and save what they have for emergency surgeries and treatments like cancer care. If you have a common blood type or type O, please consider donating blood to help address the shortage.
