Published by Kirby Winn on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 in Blog
It was a remarkable year, and we invite you to read all about it in our 2020 Annual Report
Our employees, donors, and volunteers stepped up as never before in 2020, the year the global COVID-19 pandemic reached our service region. It began with a high number of blood drive cancellations in mid-March, when schools and businesses either closed or transitioned to remote work and learning environments. By year’s end, we tallied more than 40,000 donations lost to canceled blood drives.
We required donors to make appointments for donation, eliminating our longstanding practice of accepting “walk-in” donors. This provided better control over the flow of donors at Donor Centers and mobile blood drives. Staff and donors were required to wear masks, and we implemented social distancing and additional cleaning protocols in our collection operations. All staff who could do so were instructed to work from home, using technology to access documents and meet with peers.
Amid these changes, we implemented new procedures for recruitment, collection, testing, and distribution of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma, or CCP. This product contains antibodies to the COVID-19 virus and was given by donors who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection. By year’s end, donors had provided more than 5400 units of Convalescent Plasma.
While our response to COVID-19 was the main story of 2020, we had a number of important accomplishments before and even during the pandemic.
- Launching a new and improved version of our web site, www.bloodcenter.org
- Holding the ribbon-cutting for our new Donor Center in Peoria, Illinois
- Winning the Public Relations Campaign of the Year Award from American’s Blood Centers
- Moving infectious disease and ABO blood testing operations from the Davenport headquarters to a new facility operated by the National Blood Testing Collaborative (NBTC)
- Recovering from a rare inland hurricane, or Derecho, that hit eastern Iowa and western Illinois in August 2020
- And laying the groundwork for our name change, which will be announced in May 2021
Watch our interactive annual report below or download pdf version here.
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- annual report
- convalescent plasma
- covid-19
- growth
- hospitals