SCL Health St. Mary’s Regional Blood Donor Center Signs Letter of Intent with Vitalant

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Grand Junction, CO - St. Mary’s Hospital and Medical Center have signed a letter of intent (LOI) to transition blood collection activities to Vitalant, the nation's largest independent, nonprofit blood service provider. Utilizing the expertise of a blood donor center whose sole focus is blood supply and donor management makes the most effective and efficient use of the community blood supply. It also allows St. Mary’s to further focus on our specialty and passion—patient care.

St. Mary's will remain the primary blood provider and continue collecting and providing blood products in the region until the summer of 2022. At that time, Vitalant will open a new donation donor center in Grand Junction and take over the blood collection responsibilities for the Western Slope and surrounding communities.

Vitalant is exclusively focused on providing lifesaving blood and comprehensive transfusion medicine services for about 900 hospitals and their patients across the U.S., including all of our SCL Health hospitals along the Front Range. Vitalant is internationally known and is a respected leader in the blood industry, dedicated to advancing transfusion medicine’s experience, practice, and application.

Why make this decision? The regulatory oversight of the blood donation process continues to evolve, requiring updates and changes to current operations. Keeping current with these changes is challenging for smaller, hospital-based programs. It’s why so many hospitals are making similar transitions and placing their trust in organizations like Vitalant. Today, fewer than 100 out of the 5,000 hospitals nationally operate their donation centers.

St. Mary’s leadership selected Vitalant because the organization shares a commitment to patients and blood donors.