Abstract
The walking blood bank (WBB) is a system for emergency blood acquisition from nearby donors if a patient’s blood needs exceed the immediate supply. USCENTCOM medical units will perform a walking blood bank if immediate blood requirements exceed the local supply. A benchmark WBB performance time was needed to provide a training goal for military WBB exercises. An expeditionary WBB performance time benchmark was created from prospective measurements of USCENTCOM medical unit performance times over 9 months. The mean total time, and new performance benchmark, for a WBB in USCENTCOM was 41.4 min +/− 13.2 min. USCENTCOM time from donor arrival to a transfusable unit mean time was 34.4 +/− 12.1 min. Expeditionary medical units conducting a WBB should expect to meet or exceed the provided benchmark.
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