Oklahoma Blood Institute

Testing services: while many blood centers outsource their testing, obi maintains an inhouse testing laboratory to provide a rapid response to processing units. With every donation, our diligent laboratory staff performs multiple tests to ensure blood products are safe and ready to be transfused to local patients. As a fully licensed and certified laboratory, obi maintains the highest standards and leads the nation in applying cutting-edge technology to create the safest blood products possible. Obi's testing laboratory provides a wide scope of safety testing for several blood-born conditions, like hiv, hepatitis c, and west nile virus, to ensure blood products are of the highest quality. If any sample is positive for these issues, our staff will notify the donor and refer them for additional testing and treatment. After the blood sample has been cleared, additional health screening testing is performed. For example, we test the cholesterol level of every donor as part of our standard donation process. In addition to our routine testing of units for our hospital partners, we also work together to assist other blood centers, clinics, and organ donation organizations with needed testing. Our laboratory's technology provides these clients with the impeccably efficient turnaround required for highly specialized blood testing. Maintaining strict aabb-accreditation and fda-licensing standards, our lab provides nucleic acid testing and serological and viral marker screening tests, including a wide range of screening assays. Confirmatory/supplemental assays and referral testing services are also offered.

Patient care revenue: therapeutic apheresis services for patients at area hospitals are provided by specially trained registered nurses under the direction of transfusion medicine physicians. Patients undergo treatments that remove harmful proteins, chemicals or cells in the blood that contribute to a variety of life-threatening diseases or transplant complications. Based on patients' conditions, specific offending agents or components of the blood are isolated and irradiated or removed. After this intricate processing, patients receive their treated blood to restore health.

Other program services: these other program services are blood product derivatives. Derivatives are a product manufactured from a raw material byproduct of blood collection. Obi collects this material, which is unusable for blood transfusion, and distributes this byproduct to plasma manufacturers which, in turn, use it in the production of a biological drug. Revenue for this program is $355,313 with offsetting expenses totaling $214,856. The cell therapy program involves collections of stem cells and cord blood from patients, testing, and manufacturing the products for patient use. Revenue for this program is $491,596 with offsetting expenses totaling $808,565. Obi manages the life-saving blood donations of more than 200,000 people in the region each year. These units of blood are eventually delivered to patients across the region, but not before undergoing an immense amount of fda-regulated processing and testing for donor and blood recipient safety. Volunteer blood donors give what can't be created and provided by any other means. Obi recruits donors and provides skilled medical staff, technology, and facilities to collect blood from donors. Lab professionals under the medical supervision of physicians prepare the blood for transfusion and administer multiple safety tests. All must be done with utmost urgency and around the clock since blood has a very limited time for use. Obi administers five layers of safety procedures - blood donor eligibility standards, individual screening, laboratory testing, confidential exclusion of donations and donor record checks. Extensive compliance and technical tenure are required to get blood from a donor to a patient. Blood centers also work closely with government agencies and other entities on quality control and tracking. An entire team manages the supply logistics with every medical facility served so that they have the right blood at the right time for patients. This can fluctuate greatly, even within a few hours. Couriers travel more than six million miles each year to transport donated blood to central labs and hospitals with accuracy and efficiency, leaving no need unmet, regardless of the situation or travel conditions. Hospitals and patients are not charged for the donated blood itself. Expenses are recovered through a service fee for employee wages, fuel, vehicles, advanced testing equipment and blood processing as summarized above. Obi's fees and quality have made it the chosen, sole supplier for more than 90 percent of oklahoma's blood supply, as well as more than 40 arkansas hospitals, eight hospitals in the texoma region and most hospitals in the texas high plains region. It requires 24/7, 365 days-a-year staffing and operations, much like area hospitals. In addition to these services, obi plays a critical role in trauma care. Type o whole blood, containing red cells, platelets, and plasma, is crucial in trauma because it can be safely used for patients of any blood type. The importance of this initiative is underscored by its success in oklahoma city, where whole blood was introduced to ems in 2023. From its launch in february 2023 to june 2024, okc ems providers have administered whole blood to 58 patients on-site before hospital arrival, with 48 surviving to emergency department admission and 34 eventually being discharged.