1st October is celebrated as National Voluntary Blood Donor’s Day in India to mark the birthday of Dr J G Jolly who is believed to have spearheaded the movement to promote Voluntary Blood Donation in the country. Several voluntary organizations across the country marked the day with blood donation drives and other celebrations including felicitation of regular donors. A few blood banks and hospitals organized CMEs. Sankalp too could have organized an event and marked the special day. Instead we chose to do something different.
Across the country blood donation organizations position themselves as organizers or ones who create awareness for voluntary blood donation drives. Programs, debates, lectures and discussions involving such organizations tend to go deep into methods and techniques to create awareness. Although this is an important and integral part of the job of voluntary organizations, the bigger question to answer is if the responsibility ends there?
Blood donation organization involved in organizing blood donation drives will tell you that retaining the confidence and interest of blood donors is a challenge. Again lengthy debates are held on this topic. In such debates most organizations talk about pleasing the donor through incentives – day off work, some goodies, a card promising free blood in return on a later date and the list goes on. A question comes up here too – is that the only way in which we can please and retain blood donors?
Sankalp has been a blood donation organization for more than 12 years. For the last 8.5 years we have organized close to 600 drives and collected 60,000 units of blood. Based on this experience, we believe that the answer to both the questions is a big NO. Blood banks and blood donor organizations owe blood donors much more than all this. Our work on blood donation drives makes us believe that blood donor organizations must promise and deliver quality in such voluntary blood donation drives. Efforts must be made to ensure that every donor walking in to donate must get the best experience at every stage of the drive – be it pre donation counselling and medical procedures, during phlebotomy or post donation counselling.
While speaking of blood donation drives and blood donors the emphasis for something important often goes missing – the term Voluntary. We must realize that every blood donor in voluntary blood donation drives has walked in out of his/her own good intention and free will to make a difference. Such donors usually do not expect goodies or favors in return. They expect to be treated well and to be given a nice and memorable experience.
Several studies across the world have also confirmed the fact that if a blood donor has a bad experience in a drive, he/she is very unlikely to come back for forthcoming drives. Furthermore, such donors could influence other interested donors by sharing their experience and disappointment. On the contrary, a pleasant experience will encourage them to be a voluntary blood donor for life and motivate other donors. Hence working towards promising and delivering quality in the planning and execution of blood donation drives is vital.
Over the years in our work as blood donation drive organizers, we understood several intricate aspects of blood drives. Year after year we made several improvements to the planning and delivery mechanisms so that the goal of motivating and retaining donors becomes simpler and perhaps beyond a stage quite straightforward and routine. Step by step we brought in the following practices
1. Frame a blood donation drive policy and invite only those blood banks who promise to work in accordance with the same. This policy was framed in 2008 and reviewed and accepted by several blood bank medical officers. It took vital aspects related to quality and delivery from standards laid down by NACO or in the Drug Controller Gazette.
2. Inculcate a habit of recording feedback from stakeholders and noting down areas of concerns to be addressed. Today in each of our blood donation drives we give and take feedback from the blood bank, from organizers/donors.
3. Ensure only well trained staff are a part of the team coming in for blood donation drives. Several meetings and sessions with blood bank medical officers were held in this regard to derive a standard operating procedure. This was present in the initial blood bank policy already. Training and orientation sessions were planned and delivered to staff and volunteers coming in for these drives. From Sankalp we always have one trained volunteer professionally managing every aspect of the drive.
4. Bring in standardization in identifying, managing, preventing and documenting adverse events. Here again consensus among several blood banks was brought in and a protocol was designed. The protocol in itself was based on the work of an international committee on donor hemo vigilance. Through orientation sessions this protocol was brought into practice. Every complication today is recorded. Follow up calls are given to donors who faced complications to give them a sense of reassurance and to understand if there are further problems.
5. Create a meaningful mechanism to record noncompliance to standard operating procedures. A standard form was designed to record the same. In every blood donation drive this form is filled. While the original copy is handed over to the blood bank, a copy of the same is retained with us for future reference. This too is recorded digitally.
6. Bring in a consensus on criteria for selection of blood donors. A protocol on selection including detailed criteria for deferrals was framed in consultation with several blood bank medical officers. This protocol combined the best practices mentioned in WHO, NACO and other standards. Efforts to push this into regular implementation in every blood donation drive has begun.
These steps have helped us retain blood donation drives and blood donors. Many organizations with whom we work have placed trust and confidence in our methods and have vowed to continue their support. We are now at a stage where some organizations are on the verge of celebrating 50 or more drives with Sankalp. Many individual donors in these drives confirm that they are proud to be associated with this cause and are quite excited to hear that the Sankalp team is coming again. For us these words serve to be the catalyst to continue to improve – drive after drive.
Despite these definitions, artifacts and a mindset towards quality we realized that we do not have a guideline for assessing overall camp quality. In short, it is quite difficult today to give a holistic quality picture of blood donation drives. Unfortunately there is no guideline defined anywhere. Although WHO has a few recommendations, it is not quite comprehensive for an Indian scenario.
Hence on the 1st of October Sankalp made a commitment to put in place a framework for defining the overall quality of blood donation drives. This exercise in itself can take several days considering the number of parameters that ideally should be accounted for. We are looking to give the event a new meaning. A blood donation drive for us does not only mean the day when donors walked in and the drive went on for several hours. The timeline of a drive is right from the time the decision to organize one was made to the point where the last action item post the drive was addressed and closed. We urge and encourage all blood banks, blood donor organisations and members of the blood banking fraternity to contribute to the definition and development of this framework. The experience and insights of all teams from across the nations can add value. You can send in your inputs to sankalp.admin@gmail.com.
Once this is in place and a consensus among blood bank teams has been brought in, a practice of determining overall quality will come in place. We believe that this will serve to be an eye opener giving several insights into why blood donors lose interest and address the challenges related to retention of donors.
National Voluntary Blood Donor’s day must not be restricted to thanking donors. Every year on this day, blood banks and blood donor organizations must question themselves to see if they can do anything more to make blood donation drives safer, better and a day to never forget for donors, organizers, staff, volunteers and everyone involved.
We owe this to the selfless heroes who march in to donate blood every time we need them.
Sankalp has been a blood donation organization for more than 12 years. For the last 8.5 years we have organized close to 600 drives and collected 60,000 units of blood. Based on this experience, we believe that the answer to both the questions is a big NO. Blood banks and blood donor organizations owe blood donors much more than all this. Our work on blood donation drives makes us believe that blood donor organizations must promise and deliver quality in such voluntary blood donation drives. Efforts must be made to ensure that every donor walking in to donate must get the best experience at every stage of the drive – be it pre donation counselling and medical procedures, during phlebotomy or post donation counselling.
While speaking of blood donation drives and blood donors the emphasis for something important often goes missing – the term Voluntary. We must realize that every blood donor in voluntary blood donation drives has walked in out of his/her own good intention and free will to make a difference. Such donors usually do not expect goodies or favors in return. They expect to be treated well and to be given a nice and memorable experience.
Several studies across the world have also confirmed the fact that if a blood donor has a bad experience in a drive, he/she is very unlikely to come back for forthcoming drives. Furthermore, such donors could influence other interested donors by sharing their experience and disappointment. On the contrary, a pleasant experience will encourage them to be a voluntary blood donor for life and motivate other donors. Hence working towards promising and delivering quality in the planning and execution of blood donation drives is vital.
Over the years in our work as blood donation drive organizers, we understood several intricate aspects of blood drives. Year after year we made several improvements to the planning and delivery mechanisms so that the goal of motivating and retaining donors becomes simpler and perhaps beyond a stage quite straightforward and routine. Step by step we brought in the following practices
1. Frame a blood donation drive policy and invite only those blood banks who promise to work in accordance with the same. This policy was framed in 2008 and reviewed and accepted by several blood bank medical officers. It took vital aspects related to quality and delivery from standards laid down by NACO or in the Drug Controller Gazette.
2. Inculcate a habit of recording feedback from stakeholders and noting down areas of concerns to be addressed. Today in each of our blood donation drives we give and take feedback from the blood bank, from organizers/donors.
3. Ensure only well trained staff are a part of the team coming in for blood donation drives. Several meetings and sessions with blood bank medical officers were held in this regard to derive a standard operating procedure. This was present in the initial blood bank policy already. Training and orientation sessions were planned and delivered to staff and volunteers coming in for these drives. From Sankalp we always have one trained volunteer professionally managing every aspect of the drive.
4. Bring in standardization in identifying, managing, preventing and documenting adverse events. Here again consensus among several blood banks was brought in and a protocol was designed. The protocol in itself was based on the work of an international committee on donor hemo vigilance. Through orientation sessions this protocol was brought into practice. Every complication today is recorded. Follow up calls are given to donors who faced complications to give them a sense of reassurance and to understand if there are further problems.
5. Create a meaningful mechanism to record noncompliance to standard operating procedures. A standard form was designed to record the same. In every blood donation drive this form is filled. While the original copy is handed over to the blood bank, a copy of the same is retained with us for future reference. This too is recorded digitally.
6. Bring in a consensus on criteria for selection of blood donors. A protocol on selection including detailed criteria for deferrals was framed in consultation with several blood bank medical officers. This protocol combined the best practices mentioned in WHO, NACO and other standards. Efforts to push this into regular implementation in every blood donation drive has begun.
These steps have helped us retain blood donation drives and blood donors. Many organizations with whom we work have placed trust and confidence in our methods and have vowed to continue their support. We are now at a stage where some organizations are on the verge of celebrating 50 or more drives with Sankalp. Many individual donors in these drives confirm that they are proud to be associated with this cause and are quite excited to hear that the Sankalp team is coming again. For us these words serve to be the catalyst to continue to improve – drive after drive.
Despite these definitions, artifacts and a mindset towards quality we realized that we do not have a guideline for assessing overall camp quality. In short, it is quite difficult today to give a holistic quality picture of blood donation drives. Unfortunately there is no guideline defined anywhere. Although WHO has a few recommendations, it is not quite comprehensive for an Indian scenario.
Hence on the 1st of October Sankalp made a commitment to put in place a framework for defining the overall quality of blood donation drives. This exercise in itself can take several days considering the number of parameters that ideally should be accounted for. We are looking to give the event a new meaning. A blood donation drive for us does not only mean the day when donors walked in and the drive went on for several hours. The timeline of a drive is right from the time the decision to organize one was made to the point where the last action item post the drive was addressed and closed. We urge and encourage all blood banks, blood donor organisations and members of the blood banking fraternity to contribute to the definition and development of this framework. The experience and insights of all teams from across the nations can add value. You can send in your inputs to sankalp.admin@gmail.com.
Once this is in place and a consensus among blood bank teams has been brought in, a practice of determining overall quality will come in place. We believe that this will serve to be an eye opener giving several insights into why blood donors lose interest and address the challenges related to retention of donors.
National Voluntary Blood Donor’s day must not be restricted to thanking donors. Every year on this day, blood banks and blood donor organizations must question themselves to see if they can do anything more to make blood donation drives safer, better and a day to never forget for donors, organizers, staff, volunteers and everyone involved.
We owe this to the selfless heroes who march in to donate blood every time we need them.
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