LifeStream Honors Desert Oasis Healthcare

PALM SPRINGS — LifeStream will honor Desert Oasis Healthcare at its 2019 Gift of Life Tribute: 10-Gallon Donor Celebration on Sunday, April 7 in Riverside.

There will be more than 1,000 attendees, including more than 100 50-gallon donors and 20 100-gallon donors.

Desert Oasis Healthcare will receive LifeStream’s 2019 Award for Medical Excellence.

This year’s event theme, “Your greatness is not what you have, but in what you give” describes the special community that is the Coachella Valley.

 

In 2018, Coachella Valley blood donors gave 15,724 pints of blood.

LifeStream is the exclusive provider of blood products and services to all Coachella Valley Hospitals.

“We’re very excited to honor Desert Oasis Healthcare with this prestigious award,” Dr. Rick Axelrod, LifeStream’s president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “Together we have created an extraordinary outpatient transfusion service program in multiple locations across the Coachella Valley that serves as a model for other facilities to emulate.”

Recognizing time as one of their patients’ most valuable resources, Desert Oasis Healthcare developed an outpatient transfusion clinic that could significantly reduce “time in the chair” by as much as four hours. “Outpatient transfusion saves patients from being admitted to the hospital for a blood transfusion,” Dr. Marc Hoffing, Medical Director of Desert Oasis Healthcare, said in a prepared statement. “This provides a more comfortable environment for the patient while saving them time. But it also conserves hospital resources and is safer for the patient.”

Starting with a single transfusion clinic in Palm Springs in 2012, Desert Oasis Healthcare has since opened two other transfusion clinics, strategically located in Palm Desert and Yucca Valley. Today, these three Desert Oasis Healthcare transfusion clinics provide services for those with acute but stable conditions, such as gastrointestinal bleeds.

Desert Oasis Healthcare 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.

“We’re honored to receive this award from LifeStream because we so deeply appreciate the wonderful work they do in helping to assure a safe and plentiful blood supply,” Hoffing said. “I know that Desert Oasis Healthcare employees share my feeling because we’ve been doing blood drives with LifeStream for many years and our employees are always ready to donate.”

About Desert Oasis Healthcare

Formed in 1981 as one of the first medical groups in the desert communities of southern California, Desert Oasis Healthcare (DOHC) is an affiliate of the Heritage Provider Network (HPN) founded by Dr. Richard Merkin. Today, HPN and its affiliated medical groups make up one of the nation’s leading physician-driven healthcare solutions organizations.

Desert Oasis Healthcare continues to advance with changes in the healthcare market, providing primary and immediate care, home health, palliative care, and other services to more than 70,000 members/patients living in the greater Coachella Valley and the Morongo Basin of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The multidisciplinary and comprehensive care programs of DOHC are committed to educating individuals on preventative health care in their daily lives, reflected in the DOHC motto, “Your Health. Your Life. Our Passion.” For more information, click here.