Haemonetics: Blood separating technology

Source: Healthcare Exec

Date :11/12/2007 09:07:31

Brian Murray, Haemonetics Operations Directions, talks to Exec about new developments in blood collection industry.

Written by Douglas Downing & Produced by Paul Radbourne

For more than 30 years, Haemonetics has been at the cutting edge in blood processing technology. The Haemonetics system was marketed and developed by Jack Latham in 1971, with the first collections back in the early 1970s.

Haemonetics’ Scottish operations manufacture two families of products: donor and patient. Donor products are marketed to the blood donation industry and include products that automate the blood donation process and the processing of blood, while patient products are used in the surgical suite for blood loss management.

“The company has a history of developing solutions to customers’ needs,” explains Brian Murray, Haemonetics’ Operations Director. In Scotland the company produces over 4.7 million sterile, disposable kits annually for distribution around the world.

“Haemonetics’ Patient products offer the next generation in surgical blood salvage. These products are used in surgeries and trauma where significant amounts of blood are lost - for example in cardiac or orthopaedic surgery. Haemonetics developed the Cell Saver system to help in this area and has now further enhanced this process with the new OrthoPAT and CardioPAT systems.

“Previously in surgery the blood being lost by the patient would have been disposed of and the patient would be given a transfusion of blood donated by someone else,” says Murray. Haemonetics saw this as an opportunity and developed a system that is now the industry standard.

“The blood that gets suctioned off is held in a reservoir in the Haemonetics system, centrifuged down to packed red cells, and then cleaned with a saline wash solution. The blood is then available to be transfused back to the patient. All of the processing occurs in one closed loop, reducing any need for further processing and pooling of components, and in some cases, eliminating the need for a transfusion of donor blood altogether.”

Reducing waste

Over the next twelve months, Haemonetics...

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