Milwaukee County leaders tout whole blood transfusion initiative 1 year after launch

MILWAUKEE COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- It's now been one year since Milwaukee County launched a groundbreaking program to deliver whole blood for transfusions to trauma victims. Up until now, those victims had to be brought to trauma centers for the transfusions and that travel time could be life-threatening in some cases. 

Thanks to a partnership between fire departments and the Versiti Blood Center, some departments have been able to bring whole blood to the scene of shootings, crashes, or other serious incidents. 

Milwaukee County EMS is the first in Wisconsin to do that and Dr. Ben Weston, the county's chief health policy advisor, says the program is reshaping trauma care. 

"We didn't just see this as an innovation. We saw the faces of people who, a year ago, may not have survived long enough to reach our hospitals, to reach our trauma center," said Dr. Weston. "Here in Milwaukee County, in our EMS system, we refused to accept the limits of our old style of care." 

Dr. Weston says during the first year of the program, 38 patients received whole blood transfusions before they reached the hospital -- four of them were children. Weston says many of them would not have survived without the early transfusions.