St Francis Health System changes to a different blood supplier

One of the state's largest hospitals is making a major change an effort to ensure a higher quality of its blood supply. <br><br>News on Six medical reporter Tami Marler says St Francis Health System

Wednesday, September 4th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

One of the state's largest hospitals is making a major change an effort to ensure a higher quality of its blood supply.

News on Six medical reporter Tami Marler says St Francis Health System goes through thousands of units of blood every year. That adds up to a lot of blood donations.

Kari Rochester started giving blood when the Red Cross held a blood drive at her high school. Like thousands of Oklahomans, the American Red Cross is where she goes to give, to help others. "Poor people, or you know sick, people suffering from disasters and stuff like that.â€

Kari only heard of "the competition" today, when she heard news of Oklahoma Blood Institute winning the contract for one of the state's largest blood users. But Saint Francis Health System is just one of dozens of Oklahoma hospitals OBI supplies. "Well we've been in Oklahoma since 1977, we currently service a little over 80 hospitals in the state."

Kenra Ford says that's about 75% of Oklahoma's hospitals and OBI has done it without going toe-to-toe with a national icon. â€œWe have about twelve different tests that we run, every unit of blood in the American Red Cross. We do that whether you're donating for the first time, or whether you're donating it for the hundredth time."

At least part of the reason St Francis says it switched from the Red Cross to OBI is to increase quality. Starting in July, Oklahoma Blood Institute started screening every unit of blood using nucleic acid testing - or "NAT", the most sensitive testing available for HIV and Hepatitis C.

Red Cross uses NAT testing on pooled samples of donor blood. "Their sensitivity is probably a little bit higher, but in the middle of the country the quality of the blood supply is far superior to what it is on either of the coasts." "OBI chose to use single unit testing, which is FDA approved. We are the only U-S blood center currently providing that, and there's a lot of controversy behind it."

Ford says the controversy is over cost, because "NAT" wasn't initially expected to be used on every single unit of blood.

OBI doesn't see itself as the Red Cross' "competition", they want everyone to donate blood, regardless of where.