The Puget Sound Blood Center has issued an emergency appeal for blood donations after a multi-state network outage Friday triggered a blood shortage in Western Washington.

The emergency shortage locally was triggered by a cancellation of scheduled blood drives and suspension of collections at all donor centers because of the loss of telephone and computer connectivity, said Dr. James AuBuchon, PSBC president and CEO, in a news release.

On Friday, PSBC requested all Western Washington hospitals minimize usage of blood components for 48 hours. The blood center met critical needs for that period, but the number of units is still limited. The blood centers need to collect about 900 units each day to maintain essential inventories.

A list of centers and hours is available at www.psbc.org.