P-BC-1 - A National Blood Supplier Starting a Paid Donor Model: Our Experience

In 2023, in response to a decline in the U.S. donor base, our blood center launched a pilot to improve platelet inventory and increase the donor base by incorporating paid collections of AB plasma and platelets (Plt).  A focus of this pilot is to evaluate the impact of paid collections on volunteer donor recruitment and transfusion safety.  This abstract summarizes early outcomes and program benefits.

Study

Design/Methods:

Through only digital marketing, distinct from the blood center’s volunteer donor outreach, donors were recruited to the plasma center beginning in October 2023.  Donors with a platelet count ≥ 150k at the first source plasma (SP) donation are eligible to donate Plt after their second SP donation, which must be 21 days after their first SP donation.  Product yield and donor total blood volume are monitored to ensure plasma loss remains within FDA-defined limits.  Donors must meet eligibility criteria per the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA), AABB, and the FDA.  All transfusible products are pathogen-reduced using FDA-approved pathogen reduction technology. All donations are tested for FDA and PPTA required infectious disease markers which includes hepatitis A virus and Parvovirus and screened for HLA antibodies.

Results/Findings:

Since initiating SP collections in October 2023, and Plt donations in January 2024, the program has shown steady growth to nearly 1,200 donors.  Table 1 highlights key demographics of paid versus volunteer donors from the same region (May 2024-May 2025).  Paid donors were younger on average than volunteer donors, and skew slightly more towards the male sex.  Paid donor demographics are closer to evenly distributed in terms of Caucasian versus non-Caucasian donors than volunteer donors.  Donation frequency (number of successful donations divided by the number of donors in a 12-month time period) was higher among paid donors, contributing to the program’s success.  To date, only 1% of our active paid donor base were previously active volunteer donors.  Two donors in the program were confirmed HBV-positive, no HIV/HCV-positive donors were identified, demonstrating a good early safety profile.

Conclusions:

We observed limited impact to the volunteer donor base.  No increase in HIV/HBV/HCV-positivity was detected.  Additional benefits include a younger, more diverse donor base and the ability to rapidly scale platelet and transfusible plasma collections through increased recruitment and shifting compensation during inventory shortages.  Early results support continued expansion of this program.