Hospital Newsletter
Drone Delivery of Blood Products in Canada
At the BC Transfusion Medicine Education Day on September 18, 2026, Dr. Jason Acker highlighted how drone delivery of time-critical medical supplies is transitioning from proof-of-concept demonstrations to a mainstream logistics framework across North America. Driven by operational insights from deployments across Africa and domestic field trials coordinated by researchers including Dr. Acker (Canadian Blood Services and the University of Alberta), Canada is evaluating Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) to overcome geographical, seasonal, and infrastructure barriers in blood product delivery.
In Africa, autonomous drone networks have covered over 130 million flight miles across 2.8 million shipments, serving 45 million people. These initiatives reduced transportation time by 90%, decreased blood product wastage by 67%, dropped maternal mortality from postpartum hemorrhaging by 56%, and reduced missed immunizations due to reliable cold-chain transportation by 42%, according to studies published in The Lancet Global Health, BMC Health Services Research, and other peer-reviewed journals.
Building on this precedent, Canada has conducted an incremental series of demonstration programs and research initiatives to test RPAS platforms across urban, rural, and sub-zero conditions to ensure blood components maintain structural and thermal integrity during flight. These test flights have taken place in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia.
Four primary operational areas have been identified where aerial drone transport can transform transfusion medicine. A key priority is emergency resupply under Massive Hemorrhage Protocols (MHP), enabling immediate dispatch during severe trauma cases in rural or isolated emergency departments where ground transit times are prohibitive.
Drones also allow rapid, on-demand dispatch of rare antigen-negative blood phenotypes directly from centralized hub facilities without waiting for scheduled ground couriers. Furthermore, linking regional distribution centers with community hospitals through a hub-and-spoke delivery system may optimize inventory control, reduce product expiration, and lower holding costs. Aerial networks also provide vital supply chain resilience against severe climate events and natural disasters, such as road disruptions caused by wildfires, seasonal flooding, or severe winter highway closures.
Adoption of drones has been constrained by payload capacity, collision avoidance, extreme weather, and strict airspace restrictions, but recent technological and policy developments are clearing these hurdles.
Key technological advances include 5G cellular and GPS navigation, AI-driven sense-and-avoid sensors, and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) integration for airspace collision avoidance. On the regulatory side, Transport Canada and NavCanada have established updated frameworks supporting pilot licensing, sheltered operations, and dedicated long-range flight corridors. Coupled with smart packaging telemetry that ensures live chain-of-custody tracking, Dr. Acker believes routine aerial drone delivery of blood products could become an established standard of care across Canadian healthcare systems in the near future.
Looking ahead, the future of blood product delivery in Canada relies on shifting from localized experimental trials to full integration of aerial activities within the national supply chain. With these advances, Canada is positioned to redefine cold-chain logistics in transfusion medicine. This ongoing evolution promises to bridge vast geographical inequities, ensuring that rapid, life-saving transfusion support becomes uniformly accessible to patients in remote, and rural regardless of harsh weather or other transportation obstacles.
Update on Grifols plasma collection in Canada
Grifols has begun a phased reopening of their Canadian collection centres following a voluntary temporary pause.
Canadian Blood Services recognizes the prudent and effective steps that Grifols has taken to strengthen their quality systems during this pause and understand that Health Canada is also satisfied with the actions taken to support reopening, while continuing to monitor for sustained compliance. These actions reflect the high standards of quality, safety and regulatory compliance that Canadians expect from the blood and plasma system.
We appreciate the commitment and collaboration of both Grifols and Health Canada in supporting a strong and sustainable supply of plasma-derived products for patients across Canada.
The partnership between Canadian Blood Services and Grifols plays a vital role in helping build the scale and capacity needed to meet growing demand for immunoglobulins in Canada, and advancing Canada’s goal of greater domestic sovereignty for these life-saving medications.
As Grifols resumes operation of their collection centres in Canada, we remain confident in the value of this partnership and in our shared commitment to donor safety, regulatory compliance, and reliable access to plasma-derived therapies for patients across Canada.
Global blood services unite in a call for more donors
This past summer the national blood supply declined by nearly 20 per cent. While Canadian Blood Services' donor engagement and recruitment efforts proved successful and supplies have returned to healthier levels, a range of pressures – from extreme weather and seasonal illness to changing donation patterns – challenge blood supplies in Canada and abroad. This is why blood services around the world came together in August to make an international call for more people to donate regularly.
Blood services around the world called for more people to donate regularly as a range of pressures – from extreme weather and seasonal illness to changing donation patterns – challenge blood supplies.
Blood services in Canada, England and Australia are calling for more donors, with blood supplies across the three countries dropping by up to 30 per cent recently.
Intensifying the strain is a growing demand for blood due to ageing populations leading to more people living with conditions like cancer and sickle cell that require regular blood transfusions for treatment. At the same time, demand for medicines made from plasma to treat immune deficiencies, bleeding disorders and other conditions continues to rise.
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, NHS Blood and Transplant, and both Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec in Canada say these pressures point to a growing global blood supply challenge.
Gerry Gogarty, Director of Blood and Plasma Supply at NHS Blood and Transplant, said with millions globally depending on blood transfusions for surgeries, trauma, cancer treatment and chronic disease, disruption to regular donation is a challenge all three countries face.
“Blood collection systems are vulnerable to changing weather and climate, including heatwaves in summer and cold and flu outbreaks in winter, but regular donors are the foundation of a resilient supply,” said Gerry.
The pressure is being felt across all three countries. In July, Lifeblood launched an urgent appeal for 12,000 donors, Canadian Blood Services saw inventories fall by nearly 20 per cent, and NHS Blood and Transplant issued an urgent call for donors to fill 60,000 appointments over the summer period.
Cath Stone, Chief Customer Officer at Lifeblood, said the international appeal was about using a united voice to encourage more people to become blood donors and to help boost vital stocks.
“Millions of people across our countries are eligible to donate blood, but only a small proportion do,” Cath said.
“The circumstances may be different in each of our countries, but the challenge is shared: too few eligible people donate blood regularly,” said Ron Vezina, Vice-President, Donor Engagement and Corporate Reputation at Canadian Blood Services.
As medical advances and social change continue to transform health care, it is more crucial than ever to have a resilient base of donors. Canadian Blood Services is actively working to understand changing behaviours to deepen our relationship with current donors and create new ways of inspiring donors to give, with a goal of recruiting one million new donors by 2030.
If you're feeling healthy and well, there's a good chance you're eligible to donate blood.
Canada Post Honours Donors
Canada Post paid homage to blood donors across the country in June with the unveiling of their Blood Donation Stamp. The stamp not only highlights the growing demand for blood but the profound impact one donation has on those in need.
Several Canada Post employees showed up to the Canadian Blood Services’ Carling Donor Centre to celebrate the stamp's reveal and make a donation themselves. First time donor and Canada Post Vice President of Commercial Sales and Services, Mike Badour announced, "We hope that with our work together, we can inspire more Canadians to step forward and help one another make a real difference."
Ron Vezina, Canadian Blood Services VP of Donor Engagement and Corporate Reputation, was in attendance for the reveal. "We know that when donors give, their ripple effect into the community is huge. They're not just giving a unit of blood... they're giving more life moments to people."
This stamp is a powerful reminder that small acts can have a lasting impact on both the patient and the donor and we hope it will inspire more Canadians to give.
Our new resources for healthcare professionals
Canadian Blood Services has developed educational resources in collaboration with subject-matter experts from across Canada to support best practices in transfusion medicine.
Visit our professional education website, a trusted resource hub for healthcare professionals across the country, and check out these new resources:
- Chapter 18. Platelet transfusion, alloimmunization and management of platelet refractoriness. This chapter contains newly updated information on the calculated panel reactive antibody (cPRA) threshold and a new section on platelet transfusion support for recipients of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT). Available in English and French.
- Uniform labelling. This resource hosts the updated Canadian Guidelines for the Uniform Labelling of Blood and Blood Components Using ISBT 128 as well as answers frequently asked questions regarding ISBT 128 Standards. Available in English and French.
- Canadian Recipient Hemovigilance Renewal. This webpage provides access to the Canadian Recipient Hemovigilance System Renewal Process Recommendations paper. It is shared with the transfusion community to support transparency and broad awareness of the engagement outcomes. Available in English and French.
- Breakthroughs in blood: Advancements into action. Breakthroughs in blood is a webinar series for sharing groundbreaking findings in blood research and promoting best practices in transfusion. On our professional education website, you’ll find webinar recordings and resources to support practice change. The resources are for healthcare professionals, hospital administrators, policy makers and researchers.
- New resources and recording available for our latest webinar, titled “2025 AABB and ICTMG Clinical Practice Guidelines for Platelet Transfusion” from September 29, 2026. Learn more here!
- New resources and recording available for our webinar, titled “Postoperative 20% Albumin Infusion and Acute Kidney Injury in High-Risk Cardiac Surgery Patients” from June 16, 2026. Learn more here!
- Coming soon: Join our next webinar titled “CHIPS: Can cold-stored platelets extend shelf-life without compromising care in cardiac surgery?” on November 24, 2026. Register for the event here: CHIPS: Can cold-stored platelets extend shelf-life without compromising care in cardiac surgery? | Professional Education
You can also find the latest updates from the National Advisory Committee on Blood and Blood Products (NAC) on our transfusion medicine home page.
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