Facing shortages, We Are Blood opens Cedar Park site to expand donation options

We Are Blood, Central Texas' nonprofit blood bank, has opened a new donation center in Cedar Park.

The center at 251 N. Bell Blvd. has seven beds, three for collecting platelets and four for whole blood donations. It will have the capacity to collect 800 units of whole blood and 200 units of platelets a month.

The center was a one-time estimated $715,000 capital expense and is expected to cost annually $850,000 in new expenses.

The need for platelets is a key reason this center is opening, and why the center in South Austin at 3100 W. Slaughter Lane was recently expanded, the nonprofit says. Both now match the capacity of the Round Rock location, but not the main hub in North Austin, which also processes all the blood from the centers and the mobile drives.

When it comes to having enough platelet donations, "every week for us is a significant challenge," said Nick Canedo, vice president of community engagement for We Are Blood.

While the school shooting in Uvalde led to an uptick in blood donations that week, Canedo said, "we need more donors consistently."

Each day We Are Blood needs to collect more than 200 units of whole blood, from which it will pull out red blood cells, plasma and platelets, and it needs 40 separate units of platelets to meet the current level of basic needs.

Mental health needs: Survivor's guilt after a trauma like Uvalde shooting is real, difficult to treat

A growing need for blood

In the past five years, the need for platelets has grown by 41% in the Central Texas area. The need for red blood cells taken from whole blood cell donations is up as well — 28% since 2017.

Platelets are the smallest component of your blood and help your blood clot. When your platelet count is too low, you risk bleeding to death.

We Are Blood projects that this year, the need for platelets will be up 14% from last year and the need for red blood cells will be up 6%.

We Are Blood is also projecting by 2026, it will need an additional 30% in platelets and 20% more in red blood cells than it currently collects.

The need for these blood product types is fueled by population growth, but the need for platelets has specifically been affected by the number and kinds of procedures that now are being done in Central Texas.

Platelets are most commonly needed for people undergoing cancer treatments, which affect platelet counts, but they are also used for trauma incidents and organ transplants to control bleeding.

Growth of blood needs: As Austin and its surrounding area grows, so does the local need for blood donations

The Central Texas medical community has been rapidly expanding. Two new children's hospitals are coming to North Austin, one from Dell Children's Medical Center, set to open in November, and one from Texas Children's Hospital, set to open in February 2024. St. David's HealthCare is building hospitals in Kyle and Leander and a behavioral health hospital in North Austin. All three are scheduled to open in 2024. Other hospitals are expanding their capacity with additions.

New organ transplant programs have also started operations. Dell Children's did its first heart transplant in October 2020 and expects to do its first kidney transplant this summer. The adult kidney transplant program at Dell Seton Medical Center did its first transplant in February and has plans to expand to liver and pancreas transplants. The kidney transplant program at St. David's North Austin also has been growing.

New programs: 'Sigh of relief': Pediatric kidney transplant program debuts at Dell Children's in Austin

Platelets are complicated to collect

We Are Blood only collects platelets at one of its four donation centers: North Austin, South Austin, Round Rock and now Cedar Park. Platelet donations take two to three hours because the donor is attached to a machine that removes the platelets from the blood and puts the rest of the blood back into the body. Those machines are heavy, making them difficult to transport to a mobile donation site, plus mobile drives can't tie up a bed for two or three hours for the platelet donation.

Before the Cedar Park site opened and the South Austin one expanded, sometimes not enough appointment slots were available at the donation centers for both platelet donors and whole blood donors.

Platelet donors can give once a week, compared with whole blood donors, who can give every 56 days.

Not enough red blood, either

We Are Blood has been experiencing shortages recently. The second weekend in June, it had to tell the hospitals it serves in 10 counties to conserve O negative blood, which is the blood type that can be given to any recipient and is especially important in traumas, when there isn't time for blood typing.

Vacations, the heat and high gas prices all play a role in fewer donors coming to donate, according to health care officials. We Are Blood is trying to get more people to donate in June by making a $5 donation to either Central Texas Food Bank or Austin Humane Society in honor of each person who donates this month.

Blood needs grow: St. David's North Austin becomes first Center of Excellence for kidney donation in Texas

Melanie O'Neill, 59, was donating whole blood at the new Cedar Park Center on Friday. "I try to be pretty religious about it," said O'Neill, who said she has been donating since she was 17. She lives in Georgetown and had been traveling 40 minutes every 56 days to the center in Round Rock. The Cedar Park location is only 20 minutes from her home.

"It is so my pleasure," O'Neill said.

" We can't make it in a lab," O'Neill says of blood. "Only people can make it. It's super-important everyone give if they can."

We Are Blood tries to keep enough blood on hand to handle a high-usage incident such as a mass shooting or a multivehicle car accident, but it also leans on a network of other blood banks throughout the country. Weekly, We Are Blood is asked to help another bank that has reached a critical level with its blood supply.

"It never goes to waste," Canedo said.

With the opening of the Cedar Park facility, We Are Blood expects to have enough capacity through 2024. It plans to add another mobile blood drive team to extend capacity to 2025 or 2026. It is also looking at adding a donor center in Southeast Austin in coming years.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin: We Are Blood opens Cedar Park location to combat blood, platelets shortages