Haemovigilance Webinars: Haemovigilance in Australia and Beyond

Christine Akers

Transfusion Nurse, Blood Matters

Chris Akers has been working in the Transfusion Nurse role for 17 years. She currently works in two positions. One is at Alfred Health in Melbourne, Australia, where she has worked since 2005. Her second role is with Blood Matters, a Victorian program supporting best practice in patient blood management (PBM), and the stewardship of blood and blood products, for improved outcomes in Victorian health services. Chris oversees the Serious Hazards of Transfusion program run via Blood Matters, on a day to day basis.

: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-akers-71681593/?

Michael Busch

ISBT President, Institute Director Senior VP Of Research And Scientific Programs, Vitalant Research Institute, San Fransisco, USA

Michael Busch earned his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Southern California followed by residency training in Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Transfusion Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is currently Director of Vitalant Research Institute (VRI) and Senior Vice President for Research and Scientific Affairs at Vitalant, a national network of blood centers and donor testing laboratories. He is also a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. Michael is one of the world’s leading transfusion medicine scientists, well-regarded for his ground-breaking work in such transfusion-transmitted diseases as HIV, HBV, HCV, HTLV and West Nile virus and protection of the nation’s blood supply from these and other emerging pathogens including ZIKV and SARS-CoV-2. He has published over 550 peer-reviewed scientific articles, editorials and book chapters. Michael is a member of the Transfusion Transmitted Diseases Committee of AABB, the Research and Development Advisory Committee of Canadian Blood Services and several World Health Organization panels.

Veronica Hoad

Public Health Physician, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood

Dr Veronica Hoad is a public health physician who has worked in blood safety and policy for the last seven years at Lifeblood. She works with the Donor and Product Safety Unit at Lifeblood and has a focus on assessing and minimising the risks that infectious diseases pose to blood safety including the Lifeblood COVID-19 response and developing the convalescent plasma program.

Prior to working at Lifeblood, Dr Hoad focused on communicable disease control and prevention.

Meredith Smith

Clinical Surveillance Manager, NZBS - New Zealand Blood Service

Meredith Smith began her career in Medical Laboratory Science in Australia. After 12 years at ARCBS she moved across the Tasman and spent sixteen years heading up Quality and Regulatory Affairs in the New Zealand Blood Service. When the new role of Clinical Surveillance Manager was created two years ago, she saw an opportunity to use her experience to make a positive difference to New Zealand’s National Haemovigilance Programme.

: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithsmithnz/

Joanna Speedy

Medical Officer, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood

Dr Joanna Speedy (BMBS Hons) is a medical officer at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood working within the Donor and Product Safety Unit for 10 years. Specific areas of interest are in donor iron health and wellbeing and donation-related adverse events.
Work in the area of donor iron has included contribution to research and the investigation and  implementation of strategies to mitigate iron deficiency.
 

Alison Street

Advisory Board member, NBA

Alison is a retired haematologist whose principal practice interests were in haemostasis-thrombosis, laboratory services and transfusion medicine. She has chaired the Haemovigilance Advisory Committee to the Australian National Blood Authority (NBA) since 2013 and is an NBA Advisory Board member.

Barbee Whitaker

Lead General Health Scientist, CBER at FDA

Dr. Barbee Whitaker is a Lead Scientist in the Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology within the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). She is the FDA lead for the ADVANCE Study to explore expanded MSM behavioral risk questions for blood donation and FDA co-lead for the Transfusion Transmissible Diseases Monitoring System (TTIMS). Dr. Whitaker investigates biologics outcomes, including blood product safety, through adverse event reporting and Real World Evidence (RWE) using electronic health records. She is actively involved in design of systems to better capture these data for regulatory use. In collaboration with public and private sectors, Dr. Whitaker led the initial and ongoing development of hemovigilance programs in the US, focusing on data collection from hospitals and blood centers and providing useful and actionable information locally and nationally. Dr. Whitaker is on the Board of the International Haemovigilance Network.

Erica Wood

Head, Transfusion Research Unit, Monash University

Erica Wood is the immediate past president of ISBT, and a member of its working parties on clinical practice, haemovigilance, and transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases. From 2010-2014 she was ISBT regional director for the Western Pacific region.

Erica is head of the Transfusion Research Unit in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She is a consultant haematologist at Monash Health and holds an honorary appointment at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Erica is past president of the International Haemovigilance Network, past-president of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Blood Transfusion, and a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Panel in Transfusion Medicine. Erica has served as Chief Examiner (Haematology) for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and chair of the Joint Specialist Advisory Committee in Haematology.

She is a member of the Victorian Blood Matters program advisory committee and the expert group of its Serious Transfusion Incident Reporting (STIR) haemovigilance program. In 2013, Erica was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to support her practice and research in patient blood management and haemovigilance, and in 2022 she was awarded the International Haemovigilance Medal by IHN.

: @erica_m_wood