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Canadian Blood Services: the Road to Regaining Public Trust

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Canadian Blood Services: the Road to Regaining Public Trust Thought Leader Canadian Blood Services: The road to regaining public trust The need for blood is constant; so is the need for donations. Every day, all the hospitals and clinics in Canada need blood and blood products to treat patients, since most surgical interventions and a great number of medical procedures require blood transfusions. This is where Canadian Blood Services comes in. Canadian Blood Services is a non-proit charitable organisation with a mission to manage the bloody supply for Canadians and provide a safe, secure, cost- effective and accessible supply of quality blood, blood products and their alternatives. We spoke with Canadian Blood Services’ CEO Dr Graham Sher at Research Outreach, to discuss this and more, in greater detail. n the 1980s, more than 2,000 people Can you tell us what attracted you to in Canada were infected with HIV Canadian Blood Services and what Iand over 30,000 with hepatitis C your role there involves? after they had been administered When I was asked by the newly tainted blood products. In the wake of founded Canadian Blood Services to disaster, an inquiry led by Justice Horace join the organisation as a vice-president Krever exposed years of negligence, of medical, scientiic and clinical bureaucratic inertia and at times management back in 1998, I worked as corruption at the Canadian Red Cross a physician and scientist on staff at the Society, then in charge of the blood Toronto Hospital and on faculty at the donation system. In consequence of University of Toronto. I had no plans to Patients depend on us to manage a safe, secure and cost-effective blood system Krever’s recommendations, 1998 saw leave my research lab or teaching role, the foundation of Canadian Blood but the opportunity to move beyond Services that replaced Canadian Red the individual patient level and have Cross Society in managing national a greater impact on the wider health- As part of transforming the national of national blood system operators, (except Quebec). We operate within Our responsibilities also include: blood supplies. It took nearly 20 years of care system, and ultimately, serve more blood system, I have also led Canadian with the focus of benchmarking, best the larger health-care system of running national patient registries for Canadian Blood Services’ leadership and patients, was too appealing to pass up. Blood Services through a signiicant practice sharing and global policy transfusion and transplantation organ donation and transplantation; dedication to rebuild the Canadian blood expansion in its scope of services, advancement in our sector. medicine in Canada. Patients depend operating the OneMatch Stem Cell system, make it an international success A few years later, in 2001, I became a which led to the organisation assuming on us to manage a safe, secure, and Marrow Network, which matches story, and regain the public trust. CEO. Since then, I have been leading a national leadership and coordinating Can you give us an overview of what and cost-effective blood system. donors to patients that require stem We recently caught up with Dr Sher at the organisation through a multi- role for both organ and tissue donation Canadian Blood Services does and The organisation collects, tests and cells transplants; as well as Canadian Research Outreach and talked with him year transformation journey aimed at and transplantation in Canada, and the what its aims are? manufactures blood, blood products Blood Services’ Cord Blood Bank. about the organisation’s role, his role redesigning the entire service delivery development of Canada’s national cord Canadian Blood Services manages and stem cells, and plays an integral as CEO over the last 20 years and the model, introducing best business blood banking programme. Finally, the national supply of blood, blood role in organ and tissue donation and Moreover, Canadian Blood Services is future of blood donation in Canada. practices, and growing a culture of I co-founded and continue to actively products, stem cells and related transplantation. involved in research and development high performance. participate in an international alliance services for all provinces and territories efforts focused on several areas of www.researchoutreach.org www.researchoutreach.org Thought Leader transfusion and transplantation science donor in their own family. The rest rely With more than 800 transplants to haematology rather than neurology. and medicine. We draw in experts on those who have volunteered to resulting from the KPD and HSP And, as they say, the rest is history! from various disciplines who together donate stem cells to anyone in need. programmes combined, many can bring innovative thinking to bear Thanks to the OneMatch programme Canadians have received transplants What challenges are likely to face on real problems. we can now search more than 23 million that may never have otherwise occurred. blood and organ service provision donors in more than 70 registries in Canada during the next decade? Why was the decision made to centralise in other countries when we need to You are a haematologist by training, We need to increase the amount Canada’s blood services in 1998? ind a match. By making donor data and an expert in transfusion medicine. of plasma we collect to ensure a What have been the organisation’s key available worldwide, international How did you irst become interested secure supply of plasma needed achievements in that period? registries have signiicantly increased in this ield? to manufacture immune globulin (Ig), This decision was made in the wake the odds of inding a matching donor In short, while doing my undergraduate a critical lifesaving drug, for Canadian of the tainted blood tragedy, the for any patient anywhere in the world. medical training, I was interested in patients. We plan to do this within our largest public health catastrophe in the neurology, and therefore, destined to current voluntary, unpaid system. country’s history. Justice Horace Krever What role does Canadian Blood become a neurologist. I even did a PhD We also need to recruit more blood led an inquiry into the scandal and Services have in improving the national degree (simultaneous with my medical and organ donors. We are focused published his report in 1997. Following levels of blood and organ donation? degree) in neuroscience. In my second- on connecting with an ever-changing one of his recommendations, Canadian Improving the national inventory to-last year of medical training, while population of donors; the population Blood Services was created and trusted of blood is ongoing. We help rotating through a general medical unit, in Canada is shifting to metropolitan with a mission to ensure such a disaster would never happen again. Back in 1998, we inherited a fragmented We draw in experts from various disciplines who together can blood supply system plagued with critical quality failures, badly ageing bring innovative thinking to bear on real problems facilities, and structural complexity. When I became CEO, I recognised that hospitals improve blood utilisation I become the responsible physician areas, and we need to go where the to transform the system in a long-term and surveillance and have found looking after a young patient with people go to operate as eficiently and sustainable manner we needed that educating consumers, donors, acute myeloid leukaemia. We managed as possible and make blood donation to move from crisis management to physicians and other health to get the patient into remission, and as convenient as possible for donors. strategic management. I set about professionals is key to managing ready her for a lifesaving bone marrow creating a business framework that utilisation of blood and blood products. transplant from her only sibling, • For more information on the allowed us to plan for changes over an older brother. Canadian Blood Services, their a long horizon and to move the Our work in organ donation and ground-breaking research and blood organisation to a much higher level of transplantation may be less well known. Back then, unrelated bone marrow donation, please visit their website at operational stability and performance Let me name a few of our initiatives stem cell transplants had not become blood.ca/en. success. Since then, the organisation aimed at improving matters in this standard of care, and so it was a related has integrated about a dozen regional, Dr Graham Sher, ield. Through the Kidney Paired transplant or nothing. Fortunately, this CEO of Canadian disconnected supply chains into one Blood Services since 2001 Donation (KPD) programme, we patient’s brother was a perfect “6 out seamless national system. facilitate medically compatible kidney of 6” match for her, so all was hopeful transplants through chains of donor and positive. Tragically, the day before Today, whether patients are in Victoria, system, Canadian Blood Services is the lifesaving drug in very high demand. exchanges from medically incompatible the planned bone marrow collection, Iqaluit, St. John’s, or anywhere in trusted supplier of plasma and plasma It is our responsibility to ensure enough pairs. The Highly Sensitized Patient her brother (and donor) was killed in Contact between, they can count on the same protein products for patients in Canada. plasma goes to manufacturing Ig for Kidney (HSP) programme improves a motor vehicle accident. As such, Dr Graham Sher high-quality product when they need Canadian patients. chances of a kidney transplant for no transplant option existed for this Canadian Blood Services it, without geographical or inancial We manage a pan-Canadian formulary hard-to-match patients. The National patient, and she died some months 1800 Alta Vista Drive barriers. When new pathogens emerge, of approximately 45 brands of plasma We currently only collect enough Organ Waitlist (NOW) is a real-time later after relapse of her leukaemia.
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