For the second year in a row, the Rakta Kranti team collected over 10,000 units of blood through voluntary blood donation camps in 2014-15. More than 70% of the units went to government institutions, thereby closely trying to realize what we deeply desire – availability of blood to all sections of society.
The year also witnessed a significant amount of effort spent by the team to get the right balance of quality and number of drives in place. The team strived hard towards making publicity campaigns more effective, and witnessed a reduction in non-compliance and post donation reactions as well. The number of units collected per camp also went up marginally.
Unfortunately, the percentage of deferrals in our blood donation drives also went up significantly. It is currently as high as 25.5%. While this gives us the confidence that ineligible donors are not being allowed to donate, thereby setting uncompromised standards for donor safety; it also leaves in us the fear of excluding eligible donors.
Greater levels of satisfaction and better feedback from the camp organizer were observed over the year. The focus on technology was higher than ever before, each camp being planned, scheduled and managed by our internal technology platforms.
Every blood donation camp was attended by an experienced volunteer, along with other volunteers joining in on need basis. This led to greater expertise and better quality camps too.
Progress and difficulties in 2014-15
Every year we undergo a process of planning and setting up of a roadmap, which helps the Rakta Kranti team come together and brainstorm. This not only helps the volunteers realign with the larger goal, but also helps the goal become clearer.
The year ends with the team coming back together again and discussing what we accomplished, where we failed and why? This is a positive reinforcement in helping the Rakta Kranti team get better at its work.
Below is a summary about the plans we had made for the financial year 2014-15 along with what we were able to accomplish.
1. Donor Education and Awareness – we had planned to print new posters, develop new mail templates in order to ramp up our publicity for camps. The team was able to accomplish this. We also reviewed the information we send out to organizations, with improved presentations, proposals etc.
2. Enhance Complication’s awareness – We planned to introduce newly designed fliers for post donation complications. We were able to systematically roll them out and standardize these fliers for our camps.
3. Enhance Communication - We wanted to regularise and improve communication with organisations which are a part of Team Red. This was intended to help greater sharing of ideas and help greater work get done. The meetings were not done as frequently as intended.
4. Involve more organisations – We had planned to approach religious institutions and other less involved donor groups to organize camps. We were unable to accomplish this.
5. Strengthen and regularise training – We wanted to organize trainings for blood bank doctors and technicians to help them be better equipped to handle camps, and adverse situations. Trainings did not materialise.
6. Arrest reactions at less than 3% - We had planned to reduce rate of reactions in camps, and bring them to lower than 3% this year. Although the reaction rate came down from previous year, it was around 3.33% this year.
7. Cross 15,000 units – After hitting the target of 10,000 units last year, we had plans to scale up to be able to collect over 15,000 units in 2014-15. We were able to collect 11,827 units.
8. Reduce camps significantly in months when stocks are high – There are times of the year when stocks in the city are high. We had plans to reduce collection during such times. Although the number of camps were reduced, the team could have done lesser camps as well.
9. Use of technology – Sankalp Tech Team had developed an app to help track donors in a drive in more streamlined fashion. The intention was also to make correct data available on a real-time basis. We started using electronic donor registration last year.
10. Increase speed of documentation – We had realized the need to increase the speed of documentation of the information gathered by the Rakta Kranti team. The idea was to make each interaction, drive, and drive feedback available on a near real-time basis. We were unable to reach the expected speed of documentation.
The Year in Numbers
• 151 blood donation drives with 11,827 units of blood collected, 15,712 willing donors in all. 0.5% increase in count, 13.5% increase in donor turnout and 12 more drives than previous year.
• 3 camps outside Bangalore where 177 units were collected.
• Drives in 86 institutions/organizations. 35 (40.6%) were first time drives. 5,683 units during the four summer months from April - July 2014; 2,416 units in 3 winter months.
• 7,966 (67.4%), units went to government blood banks, 2,581 (21.8%) to Voluntary and remaining to hospital based blood banks.
• 25 camps were first time camps in the company.
• 394 reactions – 3.33% of total donors.
• 25.5% donors were deferred, which means 1 in every 4 donors was deferred.
The Road Ahead: Plan for 2015-16
We plan to push for online registrations in our camps. With better tech usage, we also want to get sms facilities and automated email facilities streamlined to help better communication with blood banks, donors and organizations.
Ensuring adequate volume of blood is available is of prime importance. Keeping in mind this goal, we have targeted a collection of more than 14,000 units of blood. In order to achieve a increase in collection we seek to involved the less active donor pools including public sector units in our camps. We also plan to enhance capacity to organise camps during late evenings and nights.
With eye on enhancing quality, safety and efficiency of our drives we seek to bring non-compliance down to 1.2 per camp and post donation complication rate to 2.5-2.7 per camp. We also plan to develop a common standard for donor selection with focus on judicious deferrals for use by all blood banks attending our blood donation camps.
Strengthening systematic skill building for all involved parties is important for continued delivery of high quality blood donation drives. Keeping in mind this goal, we plan to streamline and standardise the training of technicians and doctors. We also seek to regularise the meetings and reviews with the blood bank teams for the same purpose. A novel plan we have is to initiate online trainings for the organisers to orient them to various aspects of blood donation drives.
Last year was the year of innovation in blood donor engagement using technology for us. This year, we will focus on mainstreaming the innovations including online blood donor registration in our camps. We also seek to automate communication using sms and emails with all our stakeholders.
In pursuit of high quality and operational efficiency we plan a week on week review of our work. We target to complete all processes, follow-ups and documentation within a week of the events. We also plan to involve more interns for the periods of seasonal shortage to augment our team. We also seek to further improve reporting and communication with organisations involved in our camps.
Knowledge sharing and evaluation of our work from a scientific perspective is of high importance to us. In-line with the spirit of Knowledge, Open-access and Us published in Sankalp Patrika Volume 5 Issue 5 – we plan to have at least 2 scientific publications in the year to come.
The year also witnessed a significant amount of effort spent by the team to get the right balance of quality and number of drives in place. The team strived hard towards making publicity campaigns more effective, and witnessed a reduction in non-compliance and post donation reactions as well. The number of units collected per camp also went up marginally.
Unfortunately, the percentage of deferrals in our blood donation drives also went up significantly. It is currently as high as 25.5%. While this gives us the confidence that ineligible donors are not being allowed to donate, thereby setting uncompromised standards for donor safety; it also leaves in us the fear of excluding eligible donors.
Greater levels of satisfaction and better feedback from the camp organizer were observed over the year. The focus on technology was higher than ever before, each camp being planned, scheduled and managed by our internal technology platforms.
Every blood donation camp was attended by an experienced volunteer, along with other volunteers joining in on need basis. This led to greater expertise and better quality camps too.
Progress and difficulties in 2014-15
Every year we undergo a process of planning and setting up of a roadmap, which helps the Rakta Kranti team come together and brainstorm. This not only helps the volunteers realign with the larger goal, but also helps the goal become clearer.
The year ends with the team coming back together again and discussing what we accomplished, where we failed and why? This is a positive reinforcement in helping the Rakta Kranti team get better at its work.
Below is a summary about the plans we had made for the financial year 2014-15 along with what we were able to accomplish.
1. Donor Education and Awareness – we had planned to print new posters, develop new mail templates in order to ramp up our publicity for camps. The team was able to accomplish this. We also reviewed the information we send out to organizations, with improved presentations, proposals etc.
2. Enhance Complication’s awareness – We planned to introduce newly designed fliers for post donation complications. We were able to systematically roll them out and standardize these fliers for our camps.
3. Enhance Communication - We wanted to regularise and improve communication with organisations which are a part of Team Red. This was intended to help greater sharing of ideas and help greater work get done. The meetings were not done as frequently as intended.
4. Involve more organisations – We had planned to approach religious institutions and other less involved donor groups to organize camps. We were unable to accomplish this.
5. Strengthen and regularise training – We wanted to organize trainings for blood bank doctors and technicians to help them be better equipped to handle camps, and adverse situations. Trainings did not materialise.
6. Arrest reactions at less than 3% - We had planned to reduce rate of reactions in camps, and bring them to lower than 3% this year. Although the reaction rate came down from previous year, it was around 3.33% this year.
7. Cross 15,000 units – After hitting the target of 10,000 units last year, we had plans to scale up to be able to collect over 15,000 units in 2014-15. We were able to collect 11,827 units.
8. Reduce camps significantly in months when stocks are high – There are times of the year when stocks in the city are high. We had plans to reduce collection during such times. Although the number of camps were reduced, the team could have done lesser camps as well.
9. Use of technology – Sankalp Tech Team had developed an app to help track donors in a drive in more streamlined fashion. The intention was also to make correct data available on a real-time basis. We started using electronic donor registration last year.
10. Increase speed of documentation – We had realized the need to increase the speed of documentation of the information gathered by the Rakta Kranti team. The idea was to make each interaction, drive, and drive feedback available on a near real-time basis. We were unable to reach the expected speed of documentation.
The Year in Numbers
• 151 blood donation drives with 11,827 units of blood collected, 15,712 willing donors in all. 0.5% increase in count, 13.5% increase in donor turnout and 12 more drives than previous year.
• 3 camps outside Bangalore where 177 units were collected.
• Drives in 86 institutions/organizations. 35 (40.6%) were first time drives. 5,683 units during the four summer months from April - July 2014; 2,416 units in 3 winter months.
• 7,966 (67.4%), units went to government blood banks, 2,581 (21.8%) to Voluntary and remaining to hospital based blood banks.
• 25 camps were first time camps in the company.
• 394 reactions – 3.33% of total donors.
• 25.5% donors were deferred, which means 1 in every 4 donors was deferred.
The Road Ahead: Plan for 2015-16
We plan to push for online registrations in our camps. With better tech usage, we also want to get sms facilities and automated email facilities streamlined to help better communication with blood banks, donors and organizations.
Ensuring adequate volume of blood is available is of prime importance. Keeping in mind this goal, we have targeted a collection of more than 14,000 units of blood. In order to achieve a increase in collection we seek to involved the less active donor pools including public sector units in our camps. We also plan to enhance capacity to organise camps during late evenings and nights.
With eye on enhancing quality, safety and efficiency of our drives we seek to bring non-compliance down to 1.2 per camp and post donation complication rate to 2.5-2.7 per camp. We also plan to develop a common standard for donor selection with focus on judicious deferrals for use by all blood banks attending our blood donation camps.
Strengthening systematic skill building for all involved parties is important for continued delivery of high quality blood donation drives. Keeping in mind this goal, we plan to streamline and standardise the training of technicians and doctors. We also seek to regularise the meetings and reviews with the blood bank teams for the same purpose. A novel plan we have is to initiate online trainings for the organisers to orient them to various aspects of blood donation drives.
Last year was the year of innovation in blood donor engagement using technology for us. This year, we will focus on mainstreaming the innovations including online blood donor registration in our camps. We also seek to automate communication using sms and emails with all our stakeholders.
In pursuit of high quality and operational efficiency we plan a week on week review of our work. We target to complete all processes, follow-ups and documentation within a week of the events. We also plan to involve more interns for the periods of seasonal shortage to augment our team. We also seek to further improve reporting and communication with organisations involved in our camps.
Knowledge sharing and evaluation of our work from a scientific perspective is of high importance to us. In-line with the spirit of Knowledge, Open-access and Us published in Sankalp Patrika Volume 5 Issue 5 – we plan to have at least 2 scientific publications in the year to come.
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