Should hospital blood banks begin to draw blood again?

Donor rooms in many hospitals are underused and could be converted easily to draw routine donors, the author says. He explains how the hospital can best accomplish this and the incentives for doing so. Dr. Friedman is a polemicist whose many insights into transfusion practice have advanced and transformed the discipline. The argument he presents here in favor of decentralizing donor processing is certain to provoke a lively debate. Many of the ideas were first put forward by Dr. Friedman in a lecture entitled "Forces for Change in Blood Banking," presented at the California Blood Bank System Annual Meeting in San Francisco, April 19, 1984.