Kip Kuttner

There are many plasma proteins that can cause allergic reactions. Transfusing washed cellular products frequently prevents additional reactions.  In addition, there have been several case reports of a donor consuming an allergen (peanut butter is classic) before donating. The recipient who is sensitive subsequently has an allergic reaction.  One that comes to mind was well documented in the NEJM. And of course don’t forget the controversial IgA deficient patient allergic reactions. 

There are many plasma proteins that can cause allergic reactions. Transfusing washed cellular products frequently prevents additional reactions.  In addition, there have been several case reports of a donor consuming an allergen (peanut butter is classic) before donating. The recipient who is sensitive subsequently has an allergic reaction.  One that comes to mind was well documented in the NEJM. And of course don’t forget the controversial IgA deficient patient allergic reactions. 

...Also perhaps the “numbness” was related to tongue swelling related to the allergic reaction. 

Really sick patients needing ECMO will use blood. I don’t have a way to gauge the utilization at this time though. 
All the best. 
 

Really sick patients needing ECMO will use blood. I don’t have a way to gauge the utilization at this time though. 
All the best. 
 

You would need to research available studies or file your own eIND.  Approval can take as little as 4 hour I am told.  Then you would either collect it yourself, or work with you blood supplier to collect appropriate donors. Requires excellent communication.  You can only use it for your study.  It is not an off-the-shelf product.

Platelets are in adequate supply largely due to hospitals (in my service area) enforcing restrictive transfusion measures and postponing elective surgeries. Most blood centers except in New York, Washington state, and California are treading water with respect to RBCs. As usual Rh neg units are in short supply. 
 
Most of the hospitals in my service area are also freeing up beds to treat respiratory infections. These will require fewer transfusions, although patients needing ECMO are of concern. 
 
Looking ahead, it is difficult to predict what will happen.  This is a long term event. My current concern is that blood donors will be fatigued 3 weeks from now and avoid giving blood. That is what happened after 9/11. It could be that you might need that unit of O neg on your shelf 42 days from now. 
 
In my opinion the goal is to provide blood for everyone who needs blood. Measures to restrict are prudent (and the literature indicates this is good medicine).  After this is all over and we are criticized for being too conservative, but no one died for lack of blood, I can live with that. 

Platelets are in adequate supply largely due to hospitals (in my service area) enforcing restrictive transfusion measures and postponing elective surgeries. Most blood centers except in New York, Washington state, and California are treading water with respect to RBCs. As usual Rh neg units are in short supply. 
 
Most of the hospitals in my service area are also freeing up beds to treat respiratory infections. These will require fewer transfusions, although patients needing ECMO are of concern. 
 
Looking ahead, it is difficult to predict what will happen.  This is a long term event. My current concern is that blood donors will be fatigued 3 weeks from now and avoid giving blood. That is what happened after 9/11. It could be that you might need that unit of O neg on your shelf 42 days from now. 
 
In my opinion the goal is to provide blood for everyone who needs blood. Measures to restrict are prudent (and the literature indicates this is good medicine).  After this is all over and we are criticized for being too conservative, but no one died for lack of blood, I can live with that. 

Platelets are in adequate supply largely due to hospitals (in my service area) enforcing restrictive transfusion measures and postponing elective surgeries. Most blood centers except in New York, Washington state, and California are treading water with respect to RBCs. As usual Rh neg units are in short supply. 
 
Most of the hospitals in my service area are also freeing up beds to treat respiratory infections. These will require fewer transfusions, although patients needing ECMO are of concern. 
 
Looking ahead, it is difficult to predict what will happen.  This is a long term event. My current concern is that blood donors will be fatigued 3 weeks from now and avoid giving blood. That is what happened after 9/11. It could be that you might need that unit of O neg on your shelf 42 days from now. 
 
In my opinion the goal is to provide blood for everyone who needs blood. Measures to restrict are prudent (and the literature indicates this is good medicine).  After this is all over and we are criticized for being too conservative, but no one died for lack of blood, I can live with that. 

Absolutely correct. 

There are many facets to this question. I would think each institution has a disaster plan.  It is an AABB requirement and I am sure a requirement for many other accreditation firms.
From the blood supplier point of view:
About 60% of the blood we distribute comes from mobile collections.  Businesses, churches, schools and so forth permit us to hold collection events.  If the local health departments discourage "gatherings" or even isolating parts of a community, this will adversely affect the blood supply.  While the FDA encourages blood donation, the local messaging is what really matters.  Isolation of well donors has already happened in places like Seattle and New York and is reducing the blood supply.
Will the virus penetrate the population such that blood donors become unwell?  This is hard to predict but look at Italy. Also the duration is difficult to plan for but with China it has taken about 31/2 months for the number of reported cases to fall.
One might hope that different parts of the country are affected at different times permitting the movement of blood from one region to another. However given the mobility of the population it is possible that multiple regions are affected simultaneously and movement of blood is not possible.
Hopefully, blood suppliers have begun to communicate with their hospital customers regarding the state of the blood inventory and the future ability to collect blood. 
From the hospital's point of view, what would happen if the supply became critical?  When would you consider postponing elective surgeries, or rationing blood.  Would you consider issuing splitting a whole blood unit in half and making that the "dose" in order to extend the supply (what makes the red blood cells harvested from a 450-500mL of whole blood a dose?)
When do you start rationing blood/platelets?  What about those transfusion dependent? do you divert those whole blood units intended for trauma patients to the chronically transfused.
What happens if the hospital is overrun by those with respiratory illness like is happening in Italy?
What about unwell staff? Will there be enough well to run the institution?  I understand in Italy, administrators are transporting patients and pathologists (like me god forbid) are working in the ER .
Are you sure there is an adequate supplies in your supply chain chain for each of your supplies/reagents so you can carry out business as usual?  Silly things like hand sanitizer and toilet paper, gowns, gloves are already at a premium in certain parts of the country.
 
I am mostly curious about your response to different levels of blood availability.  How do you decide to post pone surgeries.  After that should transfusion demand outstrip the supply what do you do and what is the trigger for implementing the action. 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 
Blood Industry Joint Press Release for Website - final 3.12.20.pdf

There are many facets to this question. I would think each institution has a disaster plan.  It is an AABB requirement and I am sure a requirement for many other accreditation firms.
From the blood supplier point of view:
About 60% of the blood we distribute comes from mobile collections.  Businesses, churches, schools and so forth permit us to hold collection events.  If the local health departments discourage "gatherings" or even isolating parts of a community, this will adversely affect the blood supply.  While the FDA encourages blood donation, the local messaging is what really matters.  Isolation of well donors has already happened in places like Seattle and New York and is reducing the blood supply.
Will the virus penetrate the population such that blood donors become unwell?  This is hard to predict but look at Italy. Also the duration is difficult to plan for but with China it has taken about 31/2 months for the number of reported cases to fall.
One might hope that different parts of the country are affected at different times permitting the movement of blood from one region to another. However given the mobility of the population it is possible that multiple regions are affected simultaneously and movement of blood is not possible.
Hopefully, blood suppliers have begun to communicate with their hospital customers regarding the state of the blood inventory and the future ability to collect blood. 
From the hospital's point of view, what would happen if the supply became critical?  When would you consider postponing elective surgeries, or rationing blood.  Would you consider issuing splitting a whole blood unit in half and making that the "dose" in order to extend the supply (what makes the red blood cells harvested from a 450-500mL of whole blood a dose?)
When do you start rationing blood/platelets?  What about those transfusion dependent? do you divert those whole blood units intended for trauma patients to the chronically transfused.
What happens if the hospital is overrun by those with respiratory illness like is happening in Italy?
What about unwell staff? Will there be enough well to run the institution?  I understand in Italy, administrators are transporting patients and pathologists (like me god forbid) are working in the ER .
Are you sure there is an adequate supplies in your supply chain chain for each of your supplies/reagents so you can carry out business as usual?  Silly things like hand sanitizer and toilet paper, gowns, gloves are already at a premium in certain parts of the country.
 
I am mostly curious about your response to different levels of blood availability.  How do you decide to post pone surgeries.  After that should transfusion demand outstrip the supply what do you do and what is the trigger for implementing the action. 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 
Blood Industry Joint Press Release for Website - final 3.12.20.pdf

There are many facets to this question. I would think each institution has a disaster plan.  It is an AABB requirement and I am sure a requirement for many other accreditation firms.
From the blood supplier point of view:
About 60% of the blood we distribute comes from mobile collections.  Businesses, churches, schools and so forth permit us to hold collection events.  If the local health departments discourage "gatherings" or even isolating parts of a community, this will adversely affect the blood supply.  While the FDA encourages blood donation, the local messaging is what really matters.  Isolation of well donors has already happened in places like Seattle and New York and is reducing the blood supply.
Will the virus penetrate the population such that blood donors become unwell?  This is hard to predict but look at Italy. Also the duration is difficult to plan for but with China it has taken about 31/2 months for the number of reported cases to fall.
One might hope that different parts of the country are affected at different times permitting the movement of blood from one region to another. However given the mobility of the population it is possible that multiple regions are affected simultaneously and movement of blood is not possible.
Hopefully, blood suppliers have begun to communicate with their hospital customers regarding the state of the blood inventory and the future ability to collect blood. 
From the hospital's point of view, what would happen if the supply became critical?  When would you consider postponing elective surgeries, or rationing blood.  Would you consider issuing splitting a whole blood unit in half and making that the "dose" in order to extend the supply (what makes the red blood cells harvested from a 450-500mL of whole blood a dose?)
When do you start rationing blood/platelets?  What about those transfusion dependent? do you divert those whole blood units intended for trauma patients to the chronically transfused.
What happens if the hospital is overrun by those with respiratory illness like is happening in Italy?
What about unwell staff? Will there be enough well to run the institution?  I understand in Italy, administrators are transporting patients and pathologists (like me god forbid) are working in the ER .
Are you sure there is an adequate supplies in your supply chain chain for each of your supplies/reagents so you can carry out business as usual?  Silly things like hand sanitizer and toilet paper, gowns, gloves are already at a premium in certain parts of the country.
 
I am mostly curious about your response to different levels of blood availability.  How do you decide to post pone surgeries.  After that should transfusion demand outstrip the supply what do you do and what is the trigger for implementing the action. 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 
Blood Industry Joint Press Release for Website - final 3.12.20.pdf

With attention to blood utilization, the overall red blood cell usage has gone down.  Consequently blood suppliers have had to pair down the number of overall units they collect in order to avoid out dating products.  Since we are drawing a population, the proportion of desired units in that population (All Rh negs and all group Os) has not changed, but the absolute number of the desired we can acquire units has dropped.  Transfusion practices are still demanding nearly the same number of desired units as before blood utilization practices were implemented.  About half of the Rh neg units distributed go to a non-Rh negative recipient, often because hospitals do not want to "waste" them.  Perhaps if before making that decision to transfuse the blood bank contacted the blood center and asked if there was an immediate need to transfuse an Rh negative unit to an Rh negative recipient, we could better utilize the resources we have.
Also I believe the merging of blood centers has contributed to the problem.  Where the community blood center was usually able to manage the blood needs of the local hospitals, many are selling blood by contract to facilities miles away.  This has decreased the amount of ad hoc blood available for export.
The "low-titer group O" craze is also taking a toll because of the demand for repeat donors to fulfill the need to have Whole blood units with a 21-35 day out date, available for emergencies.
Most blood centers are trying to recruit blood donors by blood group now in order to avoid out-dating Apos and Bpos units. This means that Rh negative and group O donors are approached to give 2-3 times more often than donors of other blood groups.  The desired donors are complaining that they are being approached to give red blood cells too frequently and are starting to ignore our requests.
All of these issues (and perhaps others) are contributing to the nation wide blood shortage of the most desired units. Importing products is also difficult. If they are available at all, did you know that in order to import four group O negative units a blood center might have to also purchase 50- 100 group A Pos units?
Platelet utilization seems to be increasing.  Where do platelet donors come from? Usually whole blood donors. Sometimes the blood center needs to decide whether to take a group O product or obtain a platelet product based on the needs of the day. 
Thank you to those who are excellent stewards of the products you receive!  Blood centers are not shorting you because they are incompetent.  Frequently it is extremely difficult to obtain the most desired products any where at any price.  You can help your blood center serve you by being honest with your inventory.
 
 
 

David and Cliff, I appreciate your frustration.  Blood suppliers are well aware of the critical nature of their products and cringe each time they are compelled to supply less than the request number of units.
Does your facility have an active part in the acquisition and stewardship of these DONATED gifts?  I would think working with your supplier to find a way to increase the available inventory would be of benefit to all.  For example does your facility help publicize blood drives and or encourage staff to donate. Does your facility hold successful blood drives?
Do you monitor the utilization of especially precious products.  I cringe when I hear an O neg about to expire went to a non-Rh neg donor in order that it not be "wasted".  If an Rh positive unit would have worked, the unit WAS wasted because I bet somewhere in the system is an Rh negative recipient waiting for that unit. The literature suggests that 50% of the time this is how Rh negative units are allocated.
Please try to import Rh negative units on the open market.  At a meeting today one of our customers commented that to get Rh negative units they would need to purchase proportional equivalent number of non Rh negative units.  So for example if you want to import 7 0 negs you would need to accept 93 Rh positive products.  And this is the experience of the blood centers.  I think your accountants would fuss if your attrition doubled from the extra blood you had to take.
The low titer group O whole blood will take a toll on the availability of O positive blood.  Because the expiration date is 21-35 days depending on the anticoagulant we will be approaching O positive donors more often to meet trauma resuscitation needs.
This is the only business I can think of where the Product is voluntarily given by someone who will never know the good deed they did.  Unlike product manufacturers, we cannot go to a plastics company or a drug company and ask them to just increase their production to adjust for changes in utilization. We do not PAY blood donors.  We try to convince them blood donation is an honorable thing to do...and oh by the way we will give you a t-shirt.  As a result we are not supplying a commodity, although blood centers are treated like vendors and are compelled to bid against each other producing ever slimmer margins. Think about whether you would want to issue blood that said PAID DONOR on the bag. Historically this has not worked too well, but it might be a way to increase donor participation.
I suggest, rather than blaming the blood supplier, opening a dialog with them and being prepared to do some work on your part to help improve the blood supply would be more productive.  No one wants patients to die for lack of an appropriate blood product when transfusion is indicated.

With attention to blood utilization, the overall red blood cell usage has gone down.  Consequently blood suppliers have had to pair down the number of overall units they collect in order to avoid out dating products.  Since we are drawing a population, the proportion of desired units in that population (All Rh negs and all group Os) has not changed, but the absolute number of the desired we can acquire units has dropped.  Transfusion practices are still demanding nearly the same number of desired units as before blood utilization practices were implemented.  About half of the Rh neg units distributed go to a non-Rh negative recipient, often because hospitals do not want to "waste" them.  Perhaps if before making that decision to transfuse the blood bank contacted the blood center and asked if there was an immediate need to transfuse an Rh negative unit to an Rh negative recipient, we could better utilize the resources we have.
Also I believe the merging of blood centers has contributed to the problem.  Where the community blood center was usually able to manage the blood needs of the local hospitals, many are selling blood by contract to facilities miles away.  This has decreased the amount of ad hoc blood available for export.
The "low-titer group O" craze is also taking a toll because of the demand for repeat donors to fulfill the need to have Whole blood units with a 21-35 day out date, available for emergencies.
Most blood centers are trying to recruit blood donors by blood group now in order to avoid out-dating Apos and Bpos units. This means that Rh negative and group O donors are approached to give 2-3 times more often than donors of other blood groups.  The desired donors are complaining that they are being approached to give red blood cells too frequently and are starting to ignore our requests.
All of these issues (and perhaps others) are contributing to the nation wide blood shortage of the most desired units. Importing products is also difficult. If they are available at all, did you know that in order to import four group O negative units a blood center might have to also purchase 50- 100 group A Pos units?
Platelet utilization seems to be increasing.  Where do platelet donors come from? Usually whole blood donors. Sometimes the blood center needs to decide whether to take a group O product or obtain a platelet product based on the needs of the day. 
Thank you to those who are excellent stewards of the products you receive!  Blood centers are not shorting you because they are incompetent.  Frequently it is extremely difficult to obtain the most desired products any where at any price.  You can help your blood center serve you by being honest with your inventory.
 
 
 

With attention to blood utilization, the overall red blood cell usage has gone down.  Consequently blood suppliers have had to pair down the number of overall units they collect in order to avoid out dating products.  Since we are drawing a population, the proportion of desired units in that population (All Rh negs and all group Os) has not changed, but the absolute number of the desired we can acquire units has dropped.  Transfusion practices are still demanding nearly the same number of desired units as before blood utilization practices were implemented.  About half of the Rh neg units distributed go to a non-Rh negative recipient, often because hospitals do not want to "waste" them.  Perhaps if before making that decision to transfuse the blood bank contacted the blood center and asked if there was an immediate need to transfuse an Rh negative unit to an Rh negative recipient, we could better utilize the resources we have.
Also I believe the merging of blood centers has contributed to the problem.  Where the community blood center was usually able to manage the blood needs of the local hospitals, many are selling blood by contract to facilities miles away.  This has decreased the amount of ad hoc blood available for export.
The "low-titer group O" craze is also taking a toll because of the demand for repeat donors to fulfill the need to have Whole blood units with a 21-35 day out date, available for emergencies.
Most blood centers are trying to recruit blood donors by blood group now in order to avoid out-dating Apos and Bpos units. This means that Rh negative and group O donors are approached to give 2-3 times more often than donors of other blood groups.  The desired donors are complaining that they are being approached to give red blood cells too frequently and are starting to ignore our requests.
All of these issues (and perhaps others) are contributing to the nation wide blood shortage of the most desired units. Importing products is also difficult. If they are available at all, did you know that in order to import four group O negative units a blood center might have to also purchase 50- 100 group A Pos units?
Platelet utilization seems to be increasing.  Where do platelet donors come from? Usually whole blood donors. Sometimes the blood center needs to decide whether to take a group O product or obtain a platelet product based on the needs of the day. 
Thank you to those who are excellent stewards of the products you receive!  Blood centers are not shorting you because they are incompetent.  Frequently it is extremely difficult to obtain the most desired products any where at any price.  You can help your blood center serve you by being honest with your inventory.
 
 
 

David and Cliff, I appreciate your frustration.  Blood suppliers are well aware of the critical nature of their products and cringe each time they are compelled to supply less than the request number of units.
Does your facility have an active part in the acquisition and stewardship of these DONATED gifts?  I would think working with your supplier to find a way to increase the available inventory would be of benefit to all.  For example does your facility help publicize blood drives and or encourage staff to donate. Does your facility hold successful blood drives?
Do you monitor the utilization of especially precious products.  I cringe when I hear an O neg about to expire went to a non-Rh neg donor in order that it not be "wasted".  If an Rh positive unit would have worked, the unit WAS wasted because I bet somewhere in the system is an Rh negative recipient waiting for that unit. The literature suggests that 50% of the time this is how Rh negative units are allocated.
Please try to import Rh negative units on the open market.  At a meeting today one of our customers commented that to get Rh negative units they would need to purchase proportional equivalent number of non Rh negative units.  So for example if you want to import 7 0 negs you would need to accept 93 Rh positive products.  And this is the experience of the blood centers.  I think your accountants would fuss if your attrition doubled from the extra blood you had to take.
The low titer group O whole blood will take a toll on the availability of O positive blood.  Because the expiration date is 21-35 days depending on the anticoagulant we will be approaching O positive donors more often to meet trauma resuscitation needs.
This is the only business I can think of where the Product is voluntarily given by someone who will never know the good deed they did.  Unlike product manufacturers, we cannot go to a plastics company or a drug company and ask them to just increase their production to adjust for changes in utilization. We do not PAY blood donors.  We try to convince them blood donation is an honorable thing to do...and oh by the way we will give you a t-shirt.  As a result we are not supplying a commodity, although blood centers are treated like vendors and are compelled to bid against each other producing ever slimmer margins. Think about whether you would want to issue blood that said PAID DONOR on the bag. Historically this has not worked too well, but it might be a way to increase donor participation.
I suggest, rather than blaming the blood supplier, opening a dialog with them and being prepared to do some work on your part to help improve the blood supply would be more productive.  No one wants patients to die for lack of an appropriate blood product when transfusion is indicated.

With attention to blood utilization, the overall red blood cell usage has gone down.  Consequently blood suppliers have had to pair down the number of overall units they collect in order to avoid out dating products.  Since we are drawing a population, the proportion of desired units in that population (All Rh negs and all group Os) has not changed, but the absolute number of the desired we can acquire units has dropped.  Transfusion practices are still demanding nearly the same number of desired units as before blood utilization practices were implemented.  About half of the Rh neg units distributed go to a non-Rh negative recipient, often because hospitals do not want to "waste" them.  Perhaps if before making that decision to transfuse the blood bank contacted the blood center and asked if there was an immediate need to transfuse an Rh negative unit to an Rh negative recipient, we could better utilize the resources we have.
Also I believe the merging of blood centers has contributed to the problem.  Where the community blood center was usually able to manage the blood needs of the local hospitals, many are selling blood by contract to facilities miles away.  This has decreased the amount of ad hoc blood available for export.
The "low-titer group O" craze is also taking a toll because of the demand for repeat donors to fulfill the need to have Whole blood units with a 21-35 day out date, available for emergencies.
Most blood centers are trying to recruit blood donors by blood group now in order to avoid out-dating Apos and Bpos units. This means that Rh negative and group O donors are approached to give 2-3 times more often than donors of other blood groups.  The desired donors are complaining that they are being approached to give red blood cells too frequently and are starting to ignore our requests.
All of these issues (and perhaps others) are contributing to the nation wide blood shortage of the most desired units. Importing products is also difficult. If they are available at all, did you know that in order to import four group O negative units a blood center might have to also purchase 50- 100 group A Pos units?
Platelet utilization seems to be increasing.  Where do platelet donors come from? Usually whole blood donors. Sometimes the blood center needs to decide whether to take a group O product or obtain a platelet product based on the needs of the day. 
Thank you to those who are excellent stewards of the products you receive!  Blood centers are not shorting you because they are incompetent.  Frequently it is extremely difficult to obtain the most desired products any where at any price.  You can help your blood center serve you by being honest with your inventory.
 
 
 

With attention to blood utilization, the overall red blood cell usage has gone down.  Consequently blood suppliers have had to pair down the number of overall units they collect in order to avoid out dating products.  Since we are drawing a population, the proportion of desired units in that population (All Rh negs and all group Os) has not changed, but the absolute number of the desired we can acquire units has dropped.  Transfusion practices are still demanding nearly the same number of desired units as before blood utilization practices were implemented.  About half of the Rh neg units distributed go to a non-Rh negative recipient, often because hospitals do not want to "waste" them.  Perhaps if before making that decision to transfuse the blood bank contacted the blood center and asked if there was an immediate need to transfuse an Rh negative unit to an Rh negative recipient, we could better utilize the resources we have.
Also I believe the merging of blood centers has contributed to the problem.  Where the community blood center was usually able to manage the blood needs of the local hospitals, many are selling blood by contract to facilities miles away.  This has decreased the amount of ad hoc blood available for export.
The "low-titer group O" craze is also taking a toll because of the demand for repeat donors to fulfill the need to have Whole blood units with a 21-35 day out date, available for emergencies.
Most blood centers are trying to recruit blood donors by blood group now in order to avoid out-dating Apos and Bpos units. This means that Rh negative and group O donors are approached to give 2-3 times more often than donors of other blood groups.  The desired donors are complaining that they are being approached to give red blood cells too frequently and are starting to ignore our requests.
All of these issues (and perhaps others) are contributing to the nation wide blood shortage of the most desired units. Importing products is also difficult. If they are available at all, did you know that in order to import four group O negative units a blood center might have to also purchase 50- 100 group A Pos units?
Platelet utilization seems to be increasing.  Where do platelet donors come from? Usually whole blood donors. Sometimes the blood center needs to decide whether to take a group O product or obtain a platelet product based on the needs of the day. 
Thank you to those who are excellent stewards of the products you receive!  Blood centers are not shorting you because they are incompetent.  Frequently it is extremely difficult to obtain the most desired products any where at any price.  You can help your blood center serve you by being honest with your inventory.
 
 
 

With regard to PI with platelets, it is true you do not need to test the PI products but Babesia testing still needs to be done for RBCs collected in the 13 states of interest.
Regarding test strategies, some hospitals,eg Johns Hopkins, has opted to do secondary bacterial testing on day 4 rather than the PGD test.  Attached is a recent study covering the cost effectiveness of the approaches believed to be acceptable by the FDA.  However, as noted the Guidance is not Final. This paper is a good starting point though. 
platelets Cost effectiveness methods bacteria testing Transfusion 0419.pdf

With regard to PI with platelets, it is true you do not need to test the PI products but Babesia testing still needs to be done for RBCs collected in the 13 states of interest.
Regarding test strategies, some hospitals,eg Johns Hopkins, has opted to do secondary bacterial testing on day 4 rather than the PGD test.  Attached is a recent study covering the cost effectiveness of the approaches believed to be acceptable by the FDA.  However, as noted the Guidance is not Final. This paper is a good starting point though. 
platelets Cost effectiveness methods bacteria testing Transfusion 0419.pdf

With regard to PI with platelets, it is true you do not need to test the PI products but Babesia testing still needs to be done for RBCs collected in the 13 states of interest.
Regarding test strategies, some hospitals,eg Johns Hopkins, has opted to do secondary bacterial testing on day 4 rather than the PGD test.  Attached is a recent study covering the cost effectiveness of the approaches believed to be acceptable by the FDA.  However, as noted the Guidance is not Final. This paper is a good starting point though. 
platelets Cost effectiveness methods bacteria testing Transfusion 0419.pdf

Because your blood counts will generate "patient Data" they fall under CLIA.  Proficiency testing, competency assessment, training, and operator qualifications all apply.  You can meet the requirements by having a qualified laboratorian general supervisor, oversee all of the instrument maintenance, calibration, linearity and QC review.   The laboratory Director will need to follow some of these things as in traditional patient-based lab. 
Who will be your "CLIA assessor" for this activity, AABB, CAP, Other?  If you are going to be AABB accredited then AABB will assess your operation against the CLIA regulations. The laboratory Director can be responsible for ordering the CBCs.  However if this research is clinical, the physicians sending their patients should complete the orders.  All of this should be specificed into your research protocol and IRB submission.

I agree with Dr. Blumberg that pathogen inactivated platelets are probably safer than the "cultured" platelets and that the psoralin compound used in the process currently approved by the FDA crosslinks DNA/RNA thus preventing proliferation of most organisms and WBCs. However, to my knowledge the FDA has not given blessing for pathogen inactivation to supplant irradiation yet. Reading a copy of the "prescribing information" from Cereus would answer this question.
However, it is expensive, $150-$200 premium on the current cost of the products.
It is not yet approved for pooled platelet concentrate products. (six-pack)
It is not yet approved for three products collected from a single donor (triple product).
It is not yet approved as a 7 day product.
There is about a 5-6 % decrease in the donors that qualify for giving two or three products at a time.  This is because the pathogen inactivation process decreases the platelet count by 5-6%. This means that blood centers will need to replace this number of donors in order to keep up with current product demand.
There are some who suggest the platelet efficacy of these products is diminished at as the product approaches day 5.  Whether or not this is seen clinically, I do not know but this would have a bearing on whether or not the product will be approved with 7 day out-date labeling,
There is a third option that can be entertained by the providers of these products.  That is "delayed high volume culturing".  This process makes it standard to obtain both aerobic and anaerobic cultures from each product.  This process has been used quite successfully in Great Britain to interdict contaminated platelet products. I understand this process would be approved for labeling the product with a 7 day expiration date, without the need for the consignee to do point-of-release testing (Verax).
I believe it is important for hospitals to discuss the product desired with their blood supplier.  Opening the discussion now will make for an easier transition when the guidance becomes final.  We expect to hear from the FDA on this topic later this year.