2020-2021 annual progress report – A year marked by agility, collaboration, innovation, and excellence
This blog was
originally published on Canadian Blood Services’ R.E.D. blog on November 30, 2021.
Author: Geraldine Walsh
For Canadian Blood Services and its research and education network, the last fiscal year (April 2020 to March 2021) was marked by the continuing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. As you’ll read in our Centre for Innovation 2020-2021 annual progress report, what emerges from these difficult times are stories of agility and resilience, collaboration and partnership, and innovation and excellence. It was an outstanding year for Canadian Blood Services research. The report outlines the Centre for Innovation’s efforts to support the pandemic response and our ongoing work to sustain a safe, effective, and responsive blood system. By constantly adapting to changing circumstances, our research, development, training, and education programs continued to move forward with high-impact initiatives.
Read the 2020-2021 Centre for Innovation annual progress report.
2020-2021 highlights
Supporting the pandemic response. Highlights include our work to inform public health decisions with
seroprevalence studies as part of the federal COVID-19 Immunity Task Force and our contributions to the
CONCOR-1 clinical trial to test the effectiveness of convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19.
Introducing new blood components. A process to manufacture INTERCEPT
pathogen-reduced platelets within Canadian Blood Services was developed and will be implemented shortly, pending regulatory approval.
Informing blood utilization. Several studies have had an impact on how blood products are used, such as finding
an effective alternative to IVIg - a blood product in high-demand and limited supply - to control bleeding for a certain patient group.
Improving donor selection. A research-informed process to
expand donor eligibility for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men to donate source plasma was developed and implemented in fall 2021 following Health Canada approval.
Guiding clinical practice. We supported the
International Collaboration for Transfusion Medicine Guidelines (ICTMG) collaborative, which develops clinical guidelines and resources to optimize patient transfusion care. And through a
national collaboration with Transfusion Camp, we supported the training of more than 300 health-care professionals in transfusion best practices.
Engaging and disseminating. We supported 160 investigators through
competitive funding and distribution of
products and data for research. The Centre’s research and education network published 210 peer-reviewed publications and 33 technical reports to support knowledge dissemination and decision-making.
Read the 2020-2021 Centre for Innovation annual progress report in
English or
French.
The opinions reflected in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Canadian Blood Services or the Canadian Society for Transfusion Medicine nor do they reflect the views of Health Canada or any other funding agency.
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