July 2, 2010
An
Orlando Sentinel article published Friday, July 2, severely
misrepresented how we at Florida’s Blood Centers encourage people
to donate blood. We want everyone – and especially our valued blood
donors – to know that we would never, as the article suggested,
fabricate stories or mislead people for the purpose of encouraging
blood donations.
The Sentinel article was partly based on a PowerPoint slide used
strictly for staff training purposes only. Scripts such as
this are commonly used in training programs by blood centers
throughout the country for the wide range of challenges we face
everyday.
The term “blood bank” is actually a misnomer. Blood is not kept in
a vault indefinitely. In fact, it is in such demand by hospitals
for planned and unplanned medical procedures that most of what our
donors selflessly give is transfused into patients within 48 to 72
hours of collection.
Since medical emergencies cannot be scheduled, we must be prepared
to bolster supply at a moment’s notice if tragic and unforeseen
events create a sharp demand for blood. A real-life example would
be when a patient’s need for massive amounts of blood – following,
for example, a car accident -- jeopardizes the availability of our
local blood supply. When there is an acute need for blood in
our community, especially of a critically needed type, we will
issue a special needs appeal to prospective blood donors.
The slide in question was one slide from an extensive training
presentation and was used only as an example to help illustrate
when a special needs script would be appropriate. This
training was designed to educate our employees on all types of
circumstances, from special needs calls to routine appeals.
To the best of our knowledge, this example script was never
actually read to a donor. If so, it was done without anyone’s
approval.
We have made it very clear to our team that they must obtain
approval for any change or deviation from standardized recruiting
messages used when calling donors. We would never condone any
misrepresentation of facts when encouraging people to donate
blood.
We are proud and supportive of the numerous and positive changes we
have implemented since last year to make our business more
transparent, accountable and efficient. That’s why we are
profoundly disappointed that this issue was presented to make it
appear as though we are misleading our valued donors or the
community at large. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
All of us at Florida’s Blood Centers will continue to do everything
possible to remain worthy of the community’s trust, confidence and
respect. We remain strongly committed to our paramount objective:
providing a safe, reliable and affordable blood supply to patients
in need.
Sincerely,
Mike Pratt
Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
