Blood drives at VUMC help meet critical need during shortage

Due to the pandemic there is a critical shortage of blood and blood products. Individual donations and blood drives held by businesses and organizations are down drastically.

To help, VUMC employees and the surrounding community can donate blood at one of the twice-weekly American Red Cross blood drives across several different VUMC locations. Drives operated by the blood donation service Blood Assurance are also taking place at VUMC, and information about those will be shared when available.

Nationwide blood shortages have been a problem since the beginning of the pandemic. The most recent COVID-19 surge has again limited the number of healthy people who can donate blood, either due to illness or to necessary quarantining procedures. Additionally, clinicians who help collect and process blood at the American Red Cross are dealing with staff shortages as COVID-19 continues to affect health care workers.

To schedule an appointment for other regularly scheduled Red Cross drives at Light Hall, go to redcrossblood.org and enter the sponsor code “Vandy19” or visit this sign-up link.

For Red Cross drives at One Hundred Oaks, go to redcrossblood.org and enter the sponsor code “VUMC” or visit this sign-up link.

Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital also has regular blood drives, and information about the next one will be shared here when it is available.

If on-campus drives are fully booked, you can find the nearest American Red Cross blood drive to you by visiting https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/find-drive and entering your ZIP code.

It’s possible to streamline your donation at a Red Cross drive with an online pre-donation reading and health history on donation day.

Upcoming dates and times for regularly-scheduled Red Cross blood drives on the main VUMC campus: