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Puget Sound Blood Center 

Description

Puget Sound Blood Center is an independent, nonprofit regional resource providing blood and tissue research, education and specialized laboratory services. Founded in 1944, the Blood Center has a long and unique tradition of community volunteerism and medical science.          

Regionally, the Puget Sound Blood Center is known predominantly for blood services. We collect, test, and distribute 1,000 units of blood every day to 70 hospitals and medical centers throughout Western Washington.  Inherent in that task is managing and recruiting thousands of volunteers who selflessly donate their time and their blood.                

Nationally and internationally, the Blood Center is recognized for its research in transfusion medicine, thrombosis/hemostasis, and transplantation.  Specialized programs register volunteers for the National Marrow Donor Program’s registry and provide comprehensive care for people with hemophilia and other congenital bleeding disorders throughout the Northwestern United States.

Mission Statement
Saving lives through research, innovation, education, and excellence in blood, medical, and laboratory services in partnership with our community.
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Puget Sound Blood Center
921 Terry Ave 
Seattle 
WA
98104 
(206) 398-5968 

James P. AuBuchon, MD, FCAP, FRCP (Edin) 
President and CEO 

Programs

Puget Sound Blood Center Programs

  • Blood banking – Recruiting and maintaining volunteer blood donors; collecting, testing, processing, and distributing more than 900 units of blood per day for 70 hospitals and medical centers throughout Western Washington.
  • Research Institute - Our staff of nearly 40 scientists study blood safety and storage, thrombosis and clotting disorders, as well as treatments to improve the lives of people with bleeding disorders, those who need transfusions or bone marrow matches, and many others.
  • Transfusion Medicine - In order to support the best care possible for patients, our hematologists with transfusion expertise are available to doctors and hospitals around the country through our 24-hour, toll-free, nationwide hotline. 
  • Bone Marrow – Recruiting people to join the National Marrow Donor Program’s (NMDP) Be The Match™ registry.  We also coordinate the donation process when people in our region have been matched to a patient somewhere in the world. 
  • Hemophilia Treatment Center – Providing clinical support to people with bleeding disorders and their families. 
  • Cord Blood – Recruiting, collecting, and storing umbilical cord blood from volunteer donors and registering those units with the NMDP, where they are available for transplant patients around the world.  

Recent Successes and Current Challenges

In 2012, PSBC's Research Institute unveiled its new home in South Lake Union - the hub of Seattle's vibrant scientific community - offering new opportunities for collaboration to advance blood research and improve patient care. With state-of-the-art equipment and technical support space spanning 45,000 square feet, the new facility doubles our research capacity - supporting 70 scientists across 11 laboratories. We're attracting new talent, forming new partnerships and increasing clinical research to make an even bigger difference.

It takes dedicated research to develop new treatments and and cures. Among our efforts: investigating thrombosis, the unwanted blood clotting responsible for heart attacks and strokes and the world's #1 killer. In the U.S. alone, 2.500 people die of heart attacks and strokes every day. Our scientists are working to reduce that number with new studies to detect and prevent blood clots.

Some of our current research projects are:

  • Developing treatments for severe malaria that kills through blood clots in the brain
  • Creating models to predict heart surgery outcomes
  • Inventing therapies that will accelerate wound healing
  • Treating immune responses that make medication ineffective for hemophilia patients
  • Using genetic information to improve the health of people with sickle cell disease
  • Building artificial microvessels that enable researchers to study human blood diseases without using human subjects
Your funding will help us to advance our research in these areas. The discoveries we make now will have a global impact.

Evaluation


Puget Sound Blood Center serves patients in 70 Western Washington hospitals who need blood, tissue, and stem cells. They are our region's recruitment and donor center for bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell donation.

Proven Success
The scope of their operations have expanded and evolved to meet the demands of a growing population, the needs of new and advanced medical treatments and the challenges of the changing healthcare environment. The Blood Center is more than just a community blood bank. They treat individuals with rare blood disorders that need healthcare and access to the full range of treatment options. Combining quality care and individualized attention through their different medical programs, they have become a leader for delivering healthcare to underserved and at-risk populations, increasing delivery of patient care, and addressing health disparities.

Use of Best Practices
Two innovative systems that the Blood Center has implemented to sustain or increase the delivery of healthcare are the new remote allocation system and the Genomic Blood Typing Program. The new remote allocation systems consists of an automated dispensing refrigerator that allows hospitals quick and secure access to blood and blood components at the point of use, increasing patient safety and hospital efficiencies. The Genomic Blood Typing Program is on the cutting edge of transfusion care. Utilizing the latest techniques in DNA testing, blood units are typed for many more blood groups than is possible using standard techniques. By using the advancements in blood typing research, the Genomic Blood Typing Program has provided the Blood Center with the ability to type and identify specially matched blood donors, ensuring all patients have the hematologic support they need

Accessibility and Cultural Competency
Puget Sound Blood Center’s Cord Blood Services addresses health disparities by ensuring that a growing number of patients with leukemia, metabolic disorders, immune deficiencies and other blood disorders have the transplantation medical support they require by adding diversity to the cord blood inventory through education, recruitment and collection services. Cord blood is increasingly being used as a source of stem cells and as an alternative to bone marrow transplants. The Blood Center is the first and only public cord blood bank in the Pacific Northwest. All stem cells collected are made available to patients worldwide through the National Marrow Donor Program.

Sustainability
During Fiscal Year 2012, Puget Sound Blood Center’s senior staff and Board of Trustees designed and approved a strategic plan that is primarily focused around the transfusion medicine industry and the challenges and opportunities of the region. One driving outcome of the strategic plan was for the Blood Center to identify and establish partnerships within the transfusion medicine industry and non-traditional partnerships with other organizations, like the Bleeding Disorder Foundation of Washington and the Seattle Special Care Dentistry. Also, the Blood Center could promote and tailor services to new and existing customers by securing in-home services, educational opportunities, and mobile patient services.

Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:

Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:

DateAmountPurpose
12/10/2012 $15,000.00provide general operating support.
12/10/2012 $20,000.00support the purchase of an Agilent Cary Eclipse Fluorescence Spectrophotometer.
12/11/2011 $27,558.00purchase a Perkin Elmer Micro Beta 2 Plate Reader to detect the biological profile of samples in small wells known as micro titer plates.
12/11/2010 $30,000.00purchase of histology processing equipment - Leica instruments.
3/10/2009 $30,000.00support the purchase of two bloodmobiles.
12/11/2008 $50,000.00support the purchase of a flow cytometer.
12/11/2007 $44,000.00support the purchase of a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS-MS) system.
12/14/2006 $50,000.00support the purchase of a new bloodmobile.
12/14/2006 $38,000.00support the purchase of the Axiovert 200 inverted microscope.
12/15/2005 $27,000.00support the purchase of a Cell Robotics LaserTweezers Workstation for the Research Department.

Financials

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