"QUOTES"

Costs and Economics

"From a medical-legal standpoint, the financial liability of inappropriate transfusion decisions and transfusion errors is substantial."
Strategic Blood Management

"If we had not implemented the [blood conservation] program, you could add another 30 percent to 35 percent to the budget of $3 million to $3.5 million for blood products."
Ierachmiel Daskal, MD, PhD, chairman, Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein Medical Center

"Since its establishment in 2001, the [blood management] program has …resulted in a …cost savings that exceed four million dollars per year."
Strategic Blood Management

"The administration of blood products to patients results in a three to four-fold increase in the total cost of blood beyond the base cost of its acquisition."
Strategic Blood Management
 
"Each year, unknown to the people who give the blood, blood banks buy and sell more than a million pints from one another, shifting blood all over the country and generating an estimated $50 million in revenues."
The Blood Brokers: How Blood, The 'Gift Of Life,' Became A Billion-Dollar Business, Gilbert M. Gaul, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author

"After the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, physicians of the US military approached the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management and asked about blood management. They were aware that a war in a country like Afghanistan would also require preparation on the part of the physicians. The high costs of transfusions in war times (up to US $9000 must be calculated for one unit of red blood cells when transfused in countries like Afghanistan) and logistic difficulties called for blood conserving approaches."
The History and Organization of Blood Management, Blackwell Publishing

"The average cost of a heart surgery without blood is $16,435. With blood transfusions, the same surgery costs $23,415."
woai.com

"The case [of] Raymond Talbert: He was able to leave the hospital four days after his heart surgery. Northeast Baptist says other patients who received the same procedure with blood transfusions spent 15 to 22 days in the hospital."
woai.com

"Having a Center for  Bloodless Medicine and Surgery [CBMS] specifically attracts a previously unseen population of patients to PAH. Therefore, all profit from the CBMS population, regardless of its magnitude can be considered as an incremental gain to the Hospital’s net margin. By creating and successfully running this program in today’s increasingly competitive healthcare environment, the CEO has strategically placed PAH in the forefront of modern health care."
Blood (ASH Annual Meeting Abstracts) 2004 104: Abstract 5316

"Transfusions and their associated medical complications raised hospital costs by more than 40%."
According to a study by Gavin J. Murphy, M.D., University of Bristol, reported in Circulation.

"Just one unit of donated blood can cost a hospital more than $700. By the time the hospital matches the blood and does the transfusion, the cost to the patient can jump to $1,500 or more."
woai.com

"It is difficult to identify patients in whom transfusion is truly necessary on the basis of hematocrit, age, or comorbidity."
Gavin J. Murphy, M.D., University of Bristol

"Blood means business. Make no mistake about it, blood testing, blood collection, processing, storage and transfusion is a major international big money enterprise."
BLOODBOOK.COM

"We perceive that hospitals will see bloodless surgery as a marketing strategy- that they will be 'forced' to provide an alternative to traditional surgery requiring transfusions."
Frank Stephenson, VP of marketing and sales for Harvest Technologies

"Shrinking donor availability and application of a precautionary principle to minimize transfusion risks are factors that continue to drive the cost of blood products upward."
Dr. Aryeh Shander et al.

"[In] the most recent year for which figures are available, between 12 million and 14 million units of blood were used in transfusions in the United States alone."
The New York Times, February 18, 1990

"Bloodless surgery centers… are powerful arenas that attract patients who…refuse blood."
AORN Journal  11/1/1998  Author: Kahn, Barbara; Trovarelli, Tricia; Vernon, Sharon

"Studies [show] that skipping transfusions results in faster recoveries -- and therefore lower hospital costs."
Josie Huang- Kennebec Journal

"Blood banks, meanwhile, have hiked prices to as much as $500 a pint, giving hospitals an incentive to use blood more judiciously."
Valerie Reitman Los Angeles Times - January 31, 2005

"The hospital stay is also shorter for our bloodless patients, a cost savings for the patient and the institution." 
Dr. Patricia Ford, Pennsylvania Hospital

"The savings to hospitals that have employed a comprehensive program of reducing blood transfusions is, like, $3 million to $4 million a year. It's saving on the cost of nursing time, the cost of blood, the reduction in infections, side effects and complications."
Dr. Seski, Chief of Gynecologic Oncology, Allegheny General

"Paul Potter, M.D., and a keynote speaker at October's NABMS convention, estimates that using [bloodless surgery] in half of all procedures would save the heath care industry $3.7 billion a year."
Health Industry Today – Dec 1998  

"Sales for the blood and blood components segment and the plasma derived segment of the U.S. blood market will approach $6.6 billion in 2005 and are expected to approach $9.9 billion in 2010, rising at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 8.5%.  The collection and processing products segment will grow from over $1.8 billion to nearly $2.5 billion at an AAGR of 7%."
Piribo Website  ‘Online Business Intelligence for the BioPharma industry

"Storing and transplanting blood -- costs about $500 per ounce of blood."
According to Dr. Michael Columbus, Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Hospital

"We've gone to extremes to ensure the safety of the blood supply. It's not cost-effective, but the community demands it."
Dr. Alyssa Ziman, Director Of Transfusion Medicine,  UCLA Medical Center. -  L.A. Times 4 Feb 2008

"Hospitals must pick up the tab for the first three units of blood infused per patient per calendar year. By contrast, hospitals may be reimbursed for drugs that boost a patient's red blood cell count."
According to Jan Hoffman, Administrator, Blood Conservation Program, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pennsylvania
Wikipedia -- Bloodless Surgery

"Issues such as the cost of blood, limited availability and the potentially harmful effects of transfusion dictate continued research and the development of methods to appropriately minimize transfusion to patients having cardiac surgery."
Dr. Thurer, Department of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

"Financial and other 'rewards' for donation attract high-risk populations such as drug abusers and sex workers…[the incidence of infectious diseases such as syphilis has risen twenty- to fortyfold during the last few years]."
Dr Alex Gromyko, WHO Regional Office for Europe World Health Organization - United Nations affiliate