Military blood system takes the field
By
Nick Wakeman
A new blood system is now in the field supporting U.S. military readiness around the globe.
My own personal bias drew me to this press release from Planned Systems International.
PSI announced that a new blood donor management system that it and its partner Mediware Information Systems built for the Armed Services Blood Program has been deployed globally.
I’ve given probably gallons of blood over the years, and while we have artificial sweeteners, fake leather, and imitation crab meat, we don’t have fake blood. As PSI says in its release, “Blood cannot be artificially reproduced and must be replenished due to a short shelf-life.”
Managing the blood supply and blood donations is critical for military readiness.
Before PSI’s new system, the Armed Services Blood Program used a separate system at each blood center, and data could not be shared.
The new system has a centralized database to manage and track blood donor registration, screening, blood products and associated record keeping for military and civilian donors.
PSI and Mediware worked with the DHA Enterprise Blood Management System program office, the Armed Services Blood Program Office, the Air Force, Army, Navy blood programs and each blood donor center to deploy the system worldwide.
The company declined to disclose the value of the contract.
As part of the deployment more than 400 end users had to be trained and legacy data had to be migrated to the new system.
Literally, the company is supporting the life-blood of the military. While we don’t usually write about programs once they are deployed, this one is worth a short blog post.