Blood Alert System

The Blood Alert System

The Blood Alert System is activated when the normal three-day supply of blood is depleted due to a number of events such as:

Holiday weekends show a drastic increase in emergency patients treated at area hospitals. Trauma and burn victims often require large quantities of plasma, which can deplete the blood supply. Other summer and winter holidays increase traffic on our roads and patients in the emergency rooms. At these times, while the need for blood increases, our ability to collect blood decreases disproportionately.
During the summer and winter, people become busy with vacations, outdoor activities and family gatherings. Donating blood can often take a backseat for people whose hectic schedules are jam-packed with various personal activities.
The summer heat keeps people away from blood drives; winter snows and icy roads can do the same. Also, people sometimes worry unnecessarily that donating blood will impede their athletic activities.

The goal of the Blood Alert System is to educate the public in a proactive way, when the blood supply is on the verge of slipping below adequate levels and to enlist their help before the need arises to call an emergency. The Blood Alert System is patterned after the well-known tornado watch/warning systems--using the terminology of Blood Watch and Blood Warning--to indicate the severity of the alert. The graphics shown here indicate the type of alert:

A Blood Watch means that conditions are favorable for a blood shortage to occur. This happens when the blood supply dips below a two-day level.

Medical Director approval 11/14/01