Safety

As Colorado's community blood center, Bonfils Blood Center exists to provide a safe, adequate and efficiently produced blood supply for our community and its patients. Bonfils is fully committed to remaining a volunteer donor supported organization and does not pay for blood donations.

Donating Blood is Safe

Because sterile, disposable needles and supplies are used once and safely discarded after each donation, you cannot get HIV/AIDS or any other disease by donating blood.

Additionally, Bonfils Blood Center's phlebotomists (the people who draw your blood) are specifically trained to collect volunteer blood donations and undergo three weeks of classroom training and two weeks of field training under the guidance of a qualified trainer. They then work one on one with a seasoned technician for two to three additional weeks.

As a volunteer blood collection center, Bonfils Blood Center is NOT required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency that governs workplace safety, to use gloves during phlebotomy.  If you would like our staff to wear gloves during your blood donation procedure, please let them know and they are happy to comply with your request.
 

Receiving Blood is Safe

Every unit of donated blood undergoes 13 tests for infectious diseases including HIV, HTLV, Hepatitis B/C, West Nile virus and syphilis. More than 2.6 million tests are conducted each year. These tests, in conjunction with detailed donor pre-screening and internal quality control guidelines, ensure the safety of blood products produced by Bonfils Blood Center.

Regulatory Information

Bonfils Blood Center is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and AABB (formerly American Association of Blood Banks). Additionally, Bonfils is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2008 organization. ISO 9001:2008 is a standard for good business practices - a standard which requires certain systems to be in place within a company with a focus on customer satisfaction, processes and continuous improvement.

Bonfils is fully committed to remaining a volunteer donor supported organization and does not pay for blood donations because studies have shown that volunteer donors provide a safer blood supply. Additionally, the FDA regulates the labeling of blood products for transfusion purposes to indicate whether the product came from a volunteer or a paid donor.