Thursday, March 20, 2025
Editor's Note: The New York Blood Center announced on Feb 3. all blood collection activities, including blood drives, have resumed.
The New York Blood Center, the region’s blood donation giant, was already at a low point before the new year. Since then, things have gone from bad to worse.
In December, a blood shortage — amplified by a holiday donation slump — sent its members scrambling to replenish blood supplies. Rather than beat the slump at the start of the year, the center declared a blood emergency as donations precipitously dropped 30 percent.
The nonprofit, which delivers blood products to 150 hospitals, including Long Island Jewish Valley Stream, blamed factors like “inclement weather” and a pause in school and church donation drives for the “alarmingly” dismal turnout of blood donors in recent weeks.
Then, just as one crisis unfolded, another struck. A ransomware attack, one of several reported across the county, has disrupted the center’s information technology systems. The full extent of the damage hackers inflicted on NYBC’s IT systems last week remains unclear. As of press time Tuesday, the center declined to comment on when it expects IT services to return to normal and how many of the system’s sites were affected.
“We immediately engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to investigate and confirmed that the suspicious activity is a result of a ransomware incident,” wrote an NYBC spokesperson. “We took immediate steps to help contain the threat and are working diligently with these experts to restore our systems as quickly and as safely as possible.”
The cyber breach has already taken a visible blow to the blood center’s normal operations. Over a dozen blood drives and appointments have been canceled. Donors are advised of longer wait times. Hospitals have been warned of delays in blood processing and distribution.
Blood collection and distribution lean heavily on software and computer systems to manage their operations. A ransomware attack — where hackers lock up these systems and demand payment to restore access — can logjam even the most basic of tasks, forcing blood centers into slow, manual workarounds, delaying care, and cutting service. NYCB assured they are “implementing workarounds” to fulfill blood orders.
“Continuous and open communication” has been kept between Northwell and the blood center, noted Dr. Alexander Jose Indrikovs, a pathologist at Northwell Health and senior director of blood transfusion services.
“As customers, we’ve been told that yes, computer software is affected. Some of them are being used at a limited capacity. Others cannot be used at all,” said Indrikovs. “Hospitals are aware of their limitations, but the center is still filling orders at a reasonable time and no patients or hospitals have been at risk of going without transfusions.”
That being said, Indrikovs warned, that the hospital system’s heavy reliance on the New York Blood Center means any decline could be “destabilizing” to their in-house inventories if faced with a major blood trauma or hemorrhaging crisis.
As difficult as it has been for blood centers nationwide to rebound from pandemic-induced donation shortfalls, the twin crises at NYBC expose a growing fragility — those risks undercutting the nonprofit’s ability to keep the region’s hospitals stocked.
O-negative blood, a universal donor, is highly sought-after in emergencies by hospitals noted Indrikovs since it can be safely transfused to patients with unknown blood types. Even as NYBC restores its operations, there is no easy way out of the ongoing blood shortage.
“Blood is used every day, and in order to treat patients, we need adequate blood inventories,” said Indrikovs. “If there was ever a time, this is the time to come out and donate.”
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