The Blood Center of Iowa and Siouxland Community Blood Bank announced this morning that the two nonprofit blood centers have officially merged operations and will now be known as LifeServe Blood Center. The decision to merge, reached on April 1, marks a positive move forward in the centers’ ability to counteract the rising costs of health care by providing hospital customers with lower blood costs and additional value-added benefits, the organizations said in a press release.

“As health-care costs continue to rise, it is important for us to preserve our community assets by being good stewards of our resources,” said Stacy Sime, CEO of The Blood Center of Iowa and now the CEO of Lifeserve Blood Center. “It makes sense to combine efforts in areas where we both offered similar services.”

By uniting operations, LifeServe can lower costs by consolidating similar functions such as technical and medical expertise, information technology and human resource practices, the nonprofit said in a press release. The merger also provides enhanced market competitiveness for the acquisition of blood-banking equipment, supplies and blood-testing protocols.

Though the names of the blood centers will be changed to LifeServe Blood Center over the next 12 months, donors will continue to see superior levels of customer service and community outreach programs, officials said.

Based in Des Moines, The Blood Center of Iowa provides blood and blood products to 50 hospitals in Iowa and Nebraska. Siouxland Community Blood Bank, based in Sioux City, was the sole supplier to 37 hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. Jan Twait, formerly Siouxland’s CEO, has been named LifeServe’s executive vice president. The organization retained all of its employees through the merger process and employs approximately 385 people.