Principle:

Directed donations are used for dedicated components from a particular donor for a specific patient.

Policy:

1. All requests for directed donations must be specifically approved by one of the Transfusion Medicine physicians.
2. Indications—patient has need of a rare component type, including:
   1. Antibody to a high-incidence/prevalence RBC antigen (e.g. anti-PP1Pk)
   2. Neonatal isoimmune thrombocytopenia or other platelet antibody situation (anti-HLA or platelet-specific)
   3. IgA-deficient plasma
3. Other requests:
   1. If #2 above does not apply but someone wants to donate on behalf of a particular patient, the final decision to proceed will be made by the transfusion medicine physician.
4. All directed donations must be registered as such in the Medinfo Hematos IIG computer system to ensure that the proper ISBT label is generated.
5. Directed donors must meet the same eligibility criteria as regular donors.
6. Special conditions apply to apheresis components from a dedicated donor:
   1. If a directed apheresis donor passes initial donor testing and is dedicated for one particular donor, then additional plateletpheresis donations may be accepted for 30 days without further testing.
7. The platelet apheresis component may be directly released without further testing if it is an emergency situation.  Otherwise, we will proceed with full donor testing before release.
8. Exceptions to the above policy can only be made by the Transfusion Medicine Consultants or designate;  all exceptions must be documented in writing.
9. All RBC and platelet components from directed donations will be irradiated before release.

Please note:

1. Plateletpheresis donations may be collected twice weekly from the same donor, 48 hours apart, for a maximum of 24 times per year.
2. If more than 200 ml RBC loss occurs within an 8-week period from apheresis component collection, that donor must be deferred for 8 weeks.

Reference:

Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Current Edition, AABB, Bethesda, MD, USA