Humanitarian Award Goes to Desert Oasis Healthcare

PALM SPRINGS – Desert Oasis Healthcare has been honored as the first recipient of LifeStream’s Humanitarian Award.

Desert Oasis Healthcare developed an outpatient transfusion clinic for their patients because they realized the current system was stressful, time-consuming, uncomfortable, and not user-friendly, Dr. Rick Axelrod, President/CEO and Medical Director of Lifestream, said.

“Their outpatient transfusion program reduces the time required for a transfusion, reduces the stress, and increases the comfort of the patient being transfused,” Axelrod said in a prepared statement. “The DOHC program also eliminates the requirement for hospital admission, reduces the expense associated with a transfusion, conserves hospital resources, and is safer for the patient.”

Someone needs blood every two seconds in the U.S. and one in four Americans will require transfused blood at least once in their lifetime. To help assure a safe and steady blood supply by putting more mobile blood donation coaches on the road, legendary two-time Grammy Award winner Rita Coolidge headlined LifeStream’s first Thanks4Giving gala to help raise the necessary money. The Humanitarian Award was presented at the gala.

On Nov. 21, as gala attendees made their way to the ballroom of the Esmerelda Resort & Spa in Indian Wells for the dinner, awards and entertainment, they were able to get up-close-and-personal by actually walking through one of the new mobile coaches. Because current LifeStream coaches will soon be noncompliant with more stringent state emission standards, the need for new coaches has become urgent. Without the help of sponsors and donors, like Desert Oasis Healthcare, these new coaches would not soon be on the road.

Desert Oasis Healthcare is also one of the many companies and organizations who hold regular blood donation drives with their employees. Accepting the award on behalf of DOHC were Maggie Deering, RN, VP of Clinical Services Integration and Jessica Voigt, RN, MSN, Director of Outpatient Clinical Nursing. “It’s a truly mutual relationship with LifeStream because without them our outpatient transfusion clinics might not have sufficient supplies of blood, plasma and platelets,” they remarked. “Many of our employees here tonight are not only helping to make our blood transfusion services possible but they, themselves, are also regular donors at the employee blood drives we do regularly each year for LifeStream.”

Starting with a single transfusion clinic in Palm Springs in 2012, DOHC has since opened two other transfusion clinics, strategically located in Palm Desert and Yucca Valley. Today, these three DOHC transfusion clinics provide services for those with acute but stable conditions, such as gastrointestinal bleeds. DOHC also specializes in “infusion naïve” patients and now offers platelets for those who need even greater services. Beginning with 25 transfusions in 2012, outpatient transfusions reached 380 in 2018.