In March 2022, Hanmaeum Blood Center in South Korea implemented a state-of-the-art integrated automation system to connect its nucleic acid amplification, immunology, clinical chemistry and post-analytical systems. In doing so, it became the first blood banking center in the country to integrate its molecular and serological testing operations, thus establishing it as one of the largest and most advanced facilities of its kind in Asia Pacific.

To learn more about this new operation, which was launched at a new office in Gunpo this year, we spoke with Dr Yoo-Sung Hwang, President of Hanmaeum Blood Center.

Please provide a brief introduction of Hanmaeum Blood Center. 

Hanmaeum Blood Center was established by the Korean Industrial Health Association to conduct national services responsibly. For nearly 20 years, it has been carrying out and promoting the national blood services alongside the Red Cross. It operates a blood donation cafe where individuals can donate blood, along with a blood donation bus that promotes blood donations among organisations.

What made you decide to set up a new office for your laboratory operations?

Beyond the need for more space to meet growing demand for our services, there were three goals driving the construction of a new office building. The first was to manufacture and manage standardised blood products by creating GMP-level internal facilities in line with Korea’s strengthened blood management law. The second was the consolidation of blood storage and management facilities in one place to ensure a high-quality blood supply. The third was to create an automated laboratory to minimise human error in blood screening and safety testing.

With the new automated laboratory, Hanmaeum Blood Center is able to provide better quality and more stable blood products to medical institutions smoothly and quickly.

Why did you decide to set up an automation system to connect nucleic acid amplification, immunology and biochemistry equipment in a single track?

We implemented automation equipment to reduce human errors, and we also wanted to address the rare cases where sample inappropriateness is not completely excluded despite protocol compliance for thorough retesting when the test result is positive. In addition, I believed that the implementation of molecular testing in a general laboratory would give us an edge in space management and improve the quality of the overall testing by exposing more staff to molecular diagnostics equipment.

Based on these factors, I developed the idea that testing would be far more efficient and accurate if immunology, biochemistry and molecular diagnostic equipment were combined into a single track. Then, a few years ago, while attending an international blood transfusion conference in Switzerland, I saw with my own eyes that the ideas I had been mulling over had already been introduced in some European countries.

How have clients and employees reacted to these upgrades? 

After implementing the laboratory automation system, we expect that our clients—namely university hospitals—will have greater confidence in our blood center testing. By reducing the number of manual tasks involved in inspection, staff can focus more on their original tasks, such as quality control, which will reap benefits for personnel management.

Although the employees struggled with the relocation and certification, both the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Red Cross came to visit after the completion of the new building, so it has been very rewarding. We are already getting positive employee feedback—over 80% of our employees said they are satisfied with the relocation.

As the size of the area increased, the flow of movement had to be increased as well. Since we are following GMP standards, there are more procedures, such as recording every time we enter the room. We will continue to work hard to ensure that employee satisfaction offsets these constraints.

How can other blood centers work to encourage blood donation, especially in light of current supply shortages? 

Hanmaeum Blood Center is constantly conducting a variety of promotions to make blood donation worthwhile and fun. If you donate blood, there is a 1+1 event that gives you two movie tickets so that you can watch a movie with friends and family. In July and August, we will be collaborating with Starbucks to encourage participation in blood donation and will produce Starbucks blood donation cards for blood donors. In the future, we will carry out various activities in collaboration with companies in this direction and hope that many people will have a positive view of donating blood.

How can other labs learn about your new state-of-the-art automation system? 

I hope that we will have more opportunities to share our blood center’s experience of connecting all the equipment, thereby contributing to system upgrades adapted to conditions in Asian countries. Besides the Asia-Pacific region, large domestic hospitals have also shown an interest in the facilities of our blood center. When the COVID-19 situation is over, I would like to invite the members of the Blood Management Committee of the Department of Health and Welfare and Korean Red Cross for a tour of the laboratory.