Memorial Hospital West

About

CORD:USE was founded in June 2004 by some of the leading doctors in cord blood transplantation. The company is headed by former OB/Gyn Ed Guindi, M.D.  The medical director of the CORD:USE is Joanne Kurtzberg, M.D. 

CORD:USE offers both public donation and family storage.

CORD:USE only accepts donations from medical centers where they have trained the staff.  The collection may be performed by dedicated personnel or by OB/Gyn's and midwives.  CORD:USE training allows staff to either collect cord blood "in utero", prior to delivery of the placenta, or to collect "ex utero", by draining cord blood from the placenta after it has been delivered.

Public donations collected by CORD:USE are sent to the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, a FACT-accredited program under the direction of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg. CORD:USE only saves donations that contain a minimum of one billion total nucleated cells, the highest collection threshold employed by any public bank.  Smaller collections are used for research programs that collaborate with Dr. Kurtzberg.  At the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, the CORD:USE inventory is stored in a separate BioArchive freezer.

CORD:USE  began offering family banking in late 2010, using their own custom-built laboratory in Orlando.

On 11 Feb 2010, CORD:USE announced a partnership with the Memorial Healthcare System, the fifth-largest public healthcare system in the nation.  Mary Roberts, the nursing director of the delivery unit at the Memorial West Hospital, is also the chief of their cord blood program.

The current (Nov. 2012) CORD:USE collection sites are:

1. Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies - Orlando, FL
2. South Miami Hospital - Miama, FL
   
3. Memorial Hospital West - Pembroke Pines , FL
   
4. Oakwood Hospital - Dearborn, MI
5. Scottsdale Shea Hospital - Scottsdale, AZ (press)