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Published by Kirby Winn on Thursday, January 31, 2019 in Archive

Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center to provide blood components to 11 OSF HealthCare hospitals

(Jan. 31, 2019 | Peoria, Ill.) – Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center (MVRBC) has been designated by OSF HealthCare to provide blood and blood components to 11 of the health system’s facilities. MVRBC is already the exclusive provider to five OSF HealthCare facilities. This change, effective March 1, will add six additional OSF facilities to MVRBC’s roster in Illinois. 

MVRBC is based in Davenport, Iowa, with regional operations in Urbana (Community Blood Services of Illinois) and Springfield (Central Illinois Community Blood Center). 

Beginning March 1, 2019, MVRBC will add the following OSF HealthCare facilities as full-service locations:
  • OSF HealthCare Saint Elizabeth Medical Center (Ottawa, Ill.)  
  • OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center (Peoria, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare Saint James Medical Center (Pontiac, Ill.)
  • OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center (Bloomington, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare Saint Luke Medical Center (Kewanee, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare Saint Paul Medical Center (Mendota, Ill.) 
OSF HealthCare facilities currently served by MVRBC: 
  • OSF HealthCare Heart of Mary Medical Center (Urbana, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare Holy Family Medical Center (Monmouth, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare Sacred Heart Medical Center (Danville, Ill.)
  • OSF HealthCare Saint Anthony’s Health Center (Alton, Ill.) 
  • OSF HealthCare St. Mary Medical Center (Galesburg, Ill.) 

To ensure the Blood Center’s ability to provide excellent service to OSF HealthCare, MVRBC will open a new blood Inventory Management and Distribution Hub in Peoria. A location has been identified, construction is moving forward, and efforts are now underway to hire staff for this around-the-clock distribution center. To support blood collection needs in the community, future plans include opening a blood donation center and hub for mobile blood drives. The Blood Center estimates it will hire 20 - 25 new employees for the distribution hub and donor center and will offer a number of volunteer opportunities as well.

“Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center has served as a reliable and efficient provider of blood and blood components for five of our hospitals. This is an expansion of that as OSF HealthCare works to standardize services across the communities our Ministry serves throughout Illinois,” said John Horne, Senior Vice President, Chief Supply Chain Officer, OSF HealthCare.

“Volunteer blood donors provide a critical, lifesaving resource that can come from no other source,” said Mike Parejko, Chief Executive Officer of MVRBC. “We look forward to working with our new OSF HealthCare partners and meeting new donors and Blood Drive Coordinators in the communities OSF HealthCare serves so reliably and so well.” 

The Blood Center’s donor recruitment team will work with each new OSF location to coordinate a routine schedule of blood drives at each hospital. In addition, the recruitment team will be working to find additional locations for community blood drives to provide local donors more opportunities to contribute to the region’s blood supply.

“Community support is essential to ensuring a strong and stable blood supply for the hospitals we serve,” said Amanda Hess, MVRBC’s Director, Donor Relations and Marketing. “We are fortunate to work with generous volunteer blood donors and mobile blood drive hosts throughout our service region and look forward to making new connections in Central Illinois.”

Hess noted the Blood Center offers a grant program for accredited pre-schools and K-12 public and private schools. For information, please contact Holly Yates, Associate Director, Donor Relations, at (563) 823-4120 or hyates@mvrbc.org or Jim Watts, Manager, Donor Relations, at (217) 241-7546 or jwatts@mvrbc.org. 

Blood donations are often used to help treat patients with cancer, victims of trauma and patients undergoing major surgeries. All persons age 17 and up (or 16, with a signed parental permission form) who weigh at least 110 lbs. and are in general good health meet the basic eligibility requirements for blood donation. For more information on donor eligibility, call the Blood Center at (800) 747-5401 or visit www.bloodcenter.org/eligibility. 

About OSF HealthCare
OSF HealthCare is an integrated health system owned and operated by The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. OSF HealthCare employs nearly 21,000 Mission Partners in 126 locations, including 13 hospitals - 9 acute care, 4 critical access - and two colleges of nursing throughout Illinois and Michigan. Its physician network employs more than 1,200 primary care, specialist physicians, and advanced practice providers.  OSF HealthCare operates an extensive network of home health services; owns OSF Saint Francis, Inc., comprised of health care-related businesses; and OSF HealthCare Foundation, the philanthropic arm for the organization. More at https://www.osfhealthcare.org. 

About Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center
Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center (MVRBC), based in Davenport, Iowa, serves 95 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, as well as resource sharing partners across the country. The 501(c)(3) not-for-profit blood center was established in 1974 and operates as Central Illinois Community Blood Center (Springfield, Illinois) and Community Blood Services of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois). The Blood Center’s service region extends from southwestern Wisconsin to St. Louis, Missouri and from Danville, Illinois to Albia, Iowa, an area with a population of more than 4-million residents. (See p. 3 for a map of the MVRBC service region.)

For more information, see www.bloodcenter.org and visit the Blood Center’s social media channels: www.facebook.com/mvrbc, www.twitter.com/willyougive, and https://www.instagram.com/willyougive/. 

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