Mike Rasso from ImpactLife says the new Blood Emergency Readiness Corps is a nationwide agreement to keep an emergency reserve on a rotating schedule, and to share that blood when needed.
"A minimum volume is set. We will set that site aside for a seven-day window. And if not used, we will push that back to the general inventory, and then our cycle will resurface again in three more weeks. But again, it builds that supply that previously wasn't there."
Donated blood has a limited shelf life, so an emergency could quickly deplete supplies in a region. With this new partnership, blood centers will know exactly how much blood is available in reserves across the country.
That lets local organizations respond to emergencies faster.
"What we're doing is replenishing the supply of the using blood center. They're gonna use their units, we're gonna back-fill them. So it's the units on the shelf that are the most important when that disaster happens. if other types are requested and we have that availability at our hands, we will ensure those as well."
The Blood Emergency Readiness Corps has already been activated three times: after a Tennessee shooting in November, after the December school shooting in Michigan, and after the tornado in Kentucky a few weeks ago.
ImpactLife will be on-call starting the week of Monday, January 24th. You can find out more about the partnership on the ImpactLife website.