Mobile technology has once more demonstrated its usefulness to healthcare with Social Blood, an application that claims to have saved over 80 lives since its launch on February 11, 2015.
The initiative, developed by the Ecuadorian Red Cross together with the advertising agency Publicitas Saatchi & Saatchi, won the Sol de Plata award at this year’s Festival Iberoamericano El Sol and the Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival, both in the mobile category.
“It is very expensive and takes a lot of effort to convince people to donate blood, it’s one of the Red Cross’s eternal campaigns,” observes Álvaro Fernández Mendy, creative vice-president at Publicitas. So the company decided to support the organization of the creation of an innovative tool for the donation procedure.
Grace Játiva, an engineer and coordinator at the department of Voluntary Blood Donation of the Ecuadorian Red Cross says that the project arose from the need to increase the number of blood donors to meet day to day needs in an easier and more accessible way.
How does the application work?
The user must download the app onto their smartphone and enter their blood type. Then the system will identify the telephone ID – not the number – associate it with a blood type and enter it into a database.
When a donor is needed, the application sends an automatic alert to every user in the required blood group – recognizing their location via Google Maps – and informs them of the closest center where their blood can be tested and donated. “The app helps us to send requests to repeat donors in emergency cases,” Játiva says.
For the moment, the tool only functions in Ecuador although Red Cross bases in other countries have shown interest in adopting it and have asked about the tool. “Obviously, our intention is to expand, replicate and promote tools that help to save lives,” says the engineer.
With regard to the future of the application, Fernández Mendy says that they and the programmers are analyzing how it could be improved and expanded to create a more effective version soon. “The team is working along several different lines,” he says. The Red Cross is currently seeking private and public investors.
With regard to the organization’s eHealth and mHealth projects, Játiva concludes: “We have the initiative to create new health models for preventative care and to continue using tools that help to provide an immediate response to emergencies via new technologies.”
INFORMATION: The app is available for free for the iOS and Android operating systems.
