Brandon Grant, MPH, strategic support manager with the Office of the CEO at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, donating blood with the help of Katrina Fausnacht, RN, from the Lancaster General Health Blood Donor Center
In response to a nationwide blood shortage, Penn Transfusion Medicine recently partnered with Lancaster General Health's Blood Donor Center to host two blood drives at the HUP Pavilion, helping to ensure that HUP patients receive the care they need.
A total of 180 donors – Penn Medicine employees, friends, and family – participated in the Saturday drives, allowing the hospital to collect more than 150 units of blood. After being processed by LGH blood bank staff, all the blood came back to HUP for transfusion to patients. (With an American Red Cross blood drive, the blood donated goes into the general national supply.)
It was a true collaboration between teams at the two hospitals, said Don L. Siegel, PhD, MD, director of Transfusion Medicine and Therapeutic Pathology at HUP.
“Often it is HUP with the expertise in some area that it is asked to extend out to the other entities, but here, LGH has a highly successful blood donation program that they were able to offer back to HUP,” Siegel said.
More than a dozen staff from Penn Transfusion Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System administration, and Corporate Safety volunteered their time to organize the space, keep track of donors, manage the waitlist, and arrange for shipments of blood back to LGH throughout the day.
Slots filled quickly.
Teresa Murphy, MSN, RN, nurse manager for Staffing for All Seasons at HUP, said she had an appointment to give with the Red Cross, but after hearing about the blood drive at the Pavilion and that all the blood would go to HUP, changed her plans. She likes to give blood often because she’s Type O-, the universal blood type.
Lisa J. George, MS, who works as a senior improvement advisor in Quality and Patient Safety supporting HUP Cedar, gives blood often and was eager to participate.
Lisa J. George, MS, Marie R. Castor, MSN, RN, and Teresa Murphy, MSN, RN
“As soon as I saw the sign-up come through, I jumped at the chance to give back to the HUP community,” she said. “This drive made it incredibly easy to give. It was exceedingly well-organized, ran smoothly, and everyone was knowledgeable and extremely kind. It’s clear our LGH colleagues have their processes optimized.”
George and Murphy posed for a photo with Marie R. Castor, MSN, RN, a nurse case manager in Occupational Medicine, who said she gives blood because she knows that “blood donation makes a difference between life and death.”
Thank you to all of our donors for their life-saving contributions!