Transfusion of blood components is an irreplaceable treatment to save the life of patients suffering from severe hemorrhage due to trauma or birth. Blood transfusion allows conducting complicated surgeries, implants and chemotherapy.
The blood bank is a professional system responsible for the meticulous matching of the blood components and the patients, issuing them quickly and storing them in a controlled environment to maintain their high quality.
The unit staff is professional and skilled and in appreciation of their achievements, they received the prize for the excellent lab in 2007.
Areas of activity:
1. Tests
Services provided in the blood bank include: determining blood type, antibody survey, recognizing antibodies for the various blood groups using special tests and calibrating antibodies.
These tests aid matching blood for transfusion or for blood change in babies on the one hand and for monitoring pregnant women to prevent or diagnose a hemolytic disease in the neonate, to clarify side effects following a blood transfusion, or for the diagnosis of a hemolytic anemia caused by self-antibodies on the other.
During recent years, the blood bank conducts a unique test (HIT) to diagnose a rare complication of Heparin, causing thrombocytopenia and thrombosis.
2. Pheresis services
The blood bank staff operates the devices for a-pheresis treatments – distancing plasma or leukocytes or thrombocytes from the patients’ blood, as an essential treatment for patients suffering from life threatening diseases.
The blood bank staff also performs the collection of hematopoietic stem cells from peripheral blood for self-implanting in patients with hemato-oncological diseases.
Providing thrombocytes from a single donor (produced using a-pheresis process) is a supportive treatment for implanted patients. The blood bank prepares the single donor thrombocyte units (SDP) by demand.
3. Clients
Aside from serving patients in the Kaplan-Harzfeld Medical Center, the blood bank also serves the Beit Hadar Geriatric Hospital in Ashdod and the Neve Amit Nursing Home in Rehovot. Also, it performs tests for follow up, prevention and diagnosis of a neonatal hemolytic disease amongst pregnant women in the center of Israel.
4. Training
The blood bank staff guides the doctors and the nurses regarding special precautions they should take in any stage of identifying a patient and providing him with blood to ensure maximum safety.
Also, the blood bank consults regarding the educated use of the blood and its components (thrombocytes, plasma, Cryoprecipitate) required to treat patients with active hemorrhages from various reasons and the requirements for blood products undergoing various treatments (filtering, radiation, irrigation).
5. Teaching
The blood bank staff lectures about various issues of transfusion medicine and hematology to students in the immigrant school of medicine, to nursing students in the Kaplan Medical Center and to medical students in the Hebrew University Medical School and in Hadassah Jerusalem.
Medical staff
Manager: Dr. Erica Siegler
Vice Manager: Pinchas Kritz
Secretary: Daniel Friedman
