Chief Medical Officer Our Blood Institute Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
Background/Case Studies: Blood donations are a vital part of healthcare as hospitalized patients commonly receive blood transfusions as a therapeutic procedure. The success of blood donation programs relies heavily on the return of first-time donors and the retention of frequent donors. Therefore, the donor experience plays a crucial role in encouraging blood donations.
To improve the donor experience by decreasing the time taken to screen them, a patent-pending software application was piloted at a regional blood center. The software provides blood center and hospital-based donor center medical directors and screening staff with an online tool to make evidence-based donor qualification decisions.
Study
Design/Methods: The software application was piloted at a regional blood center for seven weeks from June 28, 2021, through August 20, 2021. The web-based application incorporated a backend database with evidence-based donation intervals for medical diagnoses and medications based on literature reviews, FDA guidances, and national organization recommendations.
The study observed and measured the time spent by eight screeners. The study compared the time to review donation deferral periods manually using standard operating procedures (SOPs) to using the web-based dynamic search function. Before using the software application, the screeners received training on how to use it. The time data was collected in an Excel sheet.
Results/Findings: A total of 177 donor qualification searches were conducted using the application compared with manual methods (Figure 1). The mean time on the web application was 35.7 seconds while manual screening was 62.4 seconds (P < 0.0001 by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test). In most searches (51%), the time to complete the review was less using the application than the manual process. The review times were identical for 46% (82/177) of calls and significantly longer for 3% of the searches. On average, the software application showed a 42% improvement in time used to search and provide a deferral decision (p < 0.0001 by the Wilcoxon test). Conclusions: The beta analysis highlights the importance of using technology to improve the blood donation process. Providing donor center staff with an online tool to make standardized donor qualification intervals, the software application helped streamline the screening process and reduce wait times for donors. This, in turn, will improve the overall donor experience. In addition, the online tool provides seamless change control processes and staff training for donor centers. The enhanced web access can minimize errors and reduce staff frustration in finding the qualification intervals in the SOPs. As the need for blood components increase, finding innovative ways to make the donation process as convenient as possible is essential, not only for the donor but for the donor staff also.
Importance of research: Blood donations are vital to healthcare as hospitalized patients commonly receive blood transfusions as a therapeutic procedure. The success of blood donation programs relies heavily on the return of first-time donors and the retention of frequent donors. Therefore, the donor experience plays a crucial role in encouraging blood donations. This abstract highlights a novel approach to enhancing the donor experience by reducing donor screening time using a web-based application.
