Some blood drives offer cardiovascular disease and diabetes screening

Some blood centers are now screening donors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk through total cholesterol and hemoglobin A1c (A1c) blood tests, questionnaires, and basic physical exams. Such programs make blood centers partners in protecting public health and aim to motivate donors to take better care of themselves, said participants in a recent meeting of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB). These types of programs may benefit blood centers by motivating people to be repeat donors and to ensure blood can be used for transfusion.

New York Blood Centers (NYBC) and Carter BloodCare (CBC), based in Bedford, Texas, are among the centers now assessing donors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors, including high levels of total cholesterol and A1c, according to the AABB web site.

It reports that NYBC began in 2008 at selected blood drives to offer cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk assessment based on questionnaire responses and point-of-care testing of blood. It offers counseling and medical referral, if necessary. Two months after the blood drive, the blood center contacts participants to determine if they have followed up on findings.

CBC's programs allows donors to access their cholesterol results through a secure web site that indicates if levels found in donated blood are unhealthy and tracks them over time.

Preliminary research on CBC assessment donors who participate in screening shows that about 70% of these donors had at least one heart disease risk factor and that a majority of them are motivated to make changes to health habits. NYBC plans to expand its assessment program to all donors and hopes related data help to lower overall health care costs by encouraging donors to seek preventive care.

Before launching any blood center screening initiative directed at a particular disease, blood centers should have data that show such programs actually improve health, said Ned Calonge, MD, MPH, of U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. During the meeting he suggested that blood centers establishing screening programs use an "analytic framework" that ensures they are based on good scientific evidence of health benefits and produce evidence that can help inform policy decisions about improving health care.

Press release. Blood Donors Now Receive Cholesterol Test With Every Blood Donation. Blood Centers of the Pacific. Available online at http://www.bloodcenters.org/media-room/pr-archive-2007/blood-donors-now-receive-cholesterol-test-with-every-blood-donation/ through http://www.bloodcenters.org. Posted May 1, 2007. Accessed October 26, 2009.