Local Blood Provider Now Serving Florence-Based Hospital System

FLORENCE, S.C. – The Blood Connection (TBC), a Greenville, SC based community blood center, became the exclusive blood provider for another hospital system on October 1, 2019. McLeod Health will be joining other healthcare systems like Vidant Health, WakeMed, UNC REX Healthcare, Roper St. Francis Healthcare, Mission Health, and Prisma Health, who have chosen TBC as their local blood supplier. McLeod, a not-for-profit hospital system based in Florence, SC, has signed on to multiple years with TBC and consists of eight medical facilities that serve 18 counties in the Carolinas. This new relationship will impact thousands of residents by providing live-saving blood products to the PeeDee region through the support of those communities.

TBC has been a non-profit 501(c)(3) community blood center for almost 60 years and is the exclusive provider for the entire Upstate of South Carolina and a large portion of North Carolina. With its expansion into Florence, SC, the blood center will be bridging the gap in the northeastern part of the state between its two other service areas, Greenville and Charleston. 

“This Florence hospital system invited us to the region to be their local blood provider. We are committed to keeping this community supplied with life-saving blood products. To put it into perspective, an unexpected trauma can require 20 pints of blood or more. If there happens to be multiple traumas that require blood, the community supply could be suddenly reduced,” said Delisa K. English, TBC President and CEO. “We have to be ready. When you donate blood with The Blood Connection, you are ensuring your community will have the blood products needed to save lives every day.”

While blood collections is a big part of what TBC does, it is also a full-service blood center, which includes testing, manufacturing, distribution and reference lab services. TBC has begun hiring for blood mobiles already deployed to the region with plans to open a donation center in Florence in 2020. As a single-focused operation, the community blood center is able to commit all of its resources to collecting and testing blood products in order to transport them to local hospitals quickly.

In the last year, TBC has become the blood center of choice for 20 additional counties, providing more than 220,000 blood products to hospital partners in the Carolinas. That translates to hundreds of thousands of local people impacted by the single act of a neighbor donating blood. TBC has also doubled its mobile units to 42 and will be using them to increase its donor collection opportunities to include the southeastern part of North Carolina, more areas along the Outer Banks, and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Because TBC’s mission is to keep blood donations local, more communities will now have the opportunity to support its neighbors in a unique way by sharing life.