On January 1, 2011, the first-born of the baby boomer generation celebrated their 65th birthday. The social and economic impact caused by the aging and retirement of those born between 1946 and 1964 has long been debated and is now upon us. For the blood banking industry in the United States, little has been discussed publicly with even less preparation for the coming changes. US blood centers appear oblivious to the possible effect of shirting demographics and are poorly prepared to forecast long-term blood demands, raising the specter of future blood shortages even as the industry wallows presently in an apparent glut of blood. While the National Blood Collection and Utilization Survey (NBCUS) has proven a powerful tool to track blood donation, and the US Census Bureau has mapped and predicted the effects of demographic changes well into the future, inadequate information on the demographics of blood use in our hospitals and those factors that influence utilization has left us without the tools we need to inform policy.
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