Читать книгу Transfusion Medicine - Jeffrey McCullough - Страница 39

In the past, blood centers carried out a variety of activities that provided services in addition to the blood components. These included continuing education for physicians, technologists, and/or nurses; human leukocyte antigen typing; therapeutic apheresis; red cell reference laboratory testing; outpatient transfusions; and medical consultation for transfusion medicine. These services were often provided to hospitals and the medical technical nursing community at little or no extra charge because the activities were subsidized by the income generated from the charges for the blood components. However, as blood centers have attempted to stabilize or reduce their prices to hospitals, it has become necessary for these additional services to become self‐supporting financially. In most situations, hospitals have been unwilling to pay for the services; as a result, blood centers have reduced or eliminated these activities. Blood centers are now more narrowly focused on collecting and distributing blood.