VIDEO: A new tool to treat those suffering from trauma-related injuries in Brevard County is now available as they fly to the hospital.
Health First was the first hospital in the state of Florida to begin using what’s known as “whole blood” on its air ambulance helicopters. Rob Spivey, the trauma program manager at Holmes Regional Medical Center and First Flight nurse manager, said there is a growing movement in the U.S. to shift from using blood parts, which began in 2001, to now whole blood.
“What we used to carry then was packed red blood cells," Spivey said. "We have a blood transfusion and we have blood products that are able to spin down and separate into different components of whole blood — into packed red (blood) cells, into platelets and plasma and so forth."