Every day, hospitals and emergency services rely on a steady blood supply to treat patients undergoing surgeries, trauma care, cancer treatments, and chronic illnesses. Despite medical advancements, there is no substitute for human blood, making blood donors, blood centers and testing labs essential to maintain patient care. As supply chain disruptions such as cybersecurity attacks or natural disasters grow more common, community blood centers, hospitals and suppliers are intensifying efforts to protect the national blood supply. In a featured session at Becker’s 15th Annual Meeting, leaders from Blood Centers of America, The Community Blood Center and Abbott discussed practical steps to ensure patients receive timely transfusions — no matter the disruption.

Here are four key takeaways from the session.

1. Community blood centers are essential and decentralized by design.

Unlike many nations with centralized blood systems, the U.S. model depends on independent community-based blood centers, such as those in the Blood Centers of America network. John Hagins, president and CEO of The Community Blood Center and Chair of Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) Interorganizational Task Force on Domestic Disasters and Acts of Terrorism, described how each center within the organization’s network serves a unique role — whether in acute care, critical access hospitals or meeting the needs of level 1 or level 2 trauma centers.

“One of the best parts is that you can partner — and work not in a vendor relationship with a hospital, but in a partnership to understand what the community needs would be, what the hospital needs would be and how we drive value throughout that network,” Mr. Hagins said.

This decentralized structure also supports resiliency. “When one node of that network is impacted by something like [a] cybersecurity [attack], it usually doesn’t impact the other activities from the other blood centers. There are resources that can be brought to bear,” Mr. Hagins said.

2. Cyberattacks are rising, but collaboration is alleviating the damage.

Recent cyber incidents that targeted blood centers required nationwide coordination to maintain access. Bill Block, president and CEO of Blood Centers of America, described how the January 2025 ransomware attack on New York Blood Center posed challenges and delays for being able to process and distribute donated blood.

Mr. Block said BCA is working with the FDA to set-up emergency shared licenses between blood centers to avoid supply disruptions from future cyberattacks or other disasters. “That’s one area I think will help us proactively use the independence that we have, which is a good thing when you’re trying to mitigate risk because you’re not all hit by the same cybersecurity event,” he said.

3. Recruiting new donors is mission-critical.

The national blood donor pool is aging — and shrinking. “Over the last 10 years, donors under 30 have declined by 36%,” Mr. Block said, noting projections of 200,000 donors aging out over the next five years. “That’s a huge national concern. We need everybody in this room to think about ways they can bring in donors.”

To counter the trend, community blood centers are investing in attracting younger demographics through school partnerships, scholarships and even gamified donation experiences using mixed reality. Many are also looking to hospitals to embrace innovative programs and sponsor blood drives to help engage the broader community.

“I’ve been in a blood center for the better part of 38 years, and there are always two responses when people are asked why they don’t give blood — that they’ve never been asked, and it’s not convenient,” Mr. Hagins said. “Not only do we want to make sure it’s convenient and that folks are asked, but there is also education that goes along with it around the importance of the life-saving gift they would give to their communities.”

There is also a need for diverse and type O blood donors. Diverse blood donors help address the need for genetically matched donors for chronic conditions, such as sickle cell disease. Type O whole blood is needed for pre-hospital transfusions which significantly reduce mortality but are available in less than 5% of emergency medicine agencies nationwide. Pre-hospital blood need is not new, but the collaboration between hospitals, blood centers and emergency medicine systems needs to increase to ensure demand is met.

4. Supply chain transparency is no longer optional.

Whether it’s reagent shortages or sole-source filters manufactured in Italy, suppliers are mapping risk far beyond their immediate vendors. Dave Obernesser, director of supply chain operations at Abbott Transfusion Medicine, emphasized the criticality of analysis and deep understanding of suppliers at every tier.

“One node can disrupt your entire supply chain,” Mr. Obernesser said. “Work with your supplier base to understand who their suppliers are.”

Achieving this level of transparency, Mr. Obernesser added, will help the industry to prepare for anything.

“It’s not a matter of if something’s going to happen, but when and what,” he said. “Focus on your preparedness and what crazy scenarios might happen that could possibly disrupt your supply chain, and how can you prepare a guideline to respond to that.”

Abbott announced new investments in U.S. manufacturing and R&D that will fund the expansion of their transfusion diagnostics business, which screens more than 50% of the global blood and plasma supply.

“This was something we felt was necessary considering the critical importance of sustaining blood and plasma donations,” Mr. Obernesser said. “This is something we’re proud of, and we feel we’re going to be in a very strong position to sustain blood screening products to our customers as necessary in the long run, in the event of any type of disruption that could happen.”

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