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Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoMy friend Regan Gill once worked for the Seattle blood bank. She said business was always hopping after the bars closed, espcially on friday and saturday nights. On time a bag of blood broke open while she was carrying a case of blood down a long hallway. It looked just like she'd dragged a stiff down the hall.
- anigbrowl 11y agoWhat a genius idea to raise awareness. This seems like a no-brainer for blood banks, hospitals, public health and so on.
- jacquesm 11y agoI think it's a terrible idea. That reverse track from specific use of blood to phone number of the source should not even exist.
- prebrov 11y agoThat probably must exist to track potential problem with donor's blood in case it wasn't spotted And also, people generally like being appreciated personally. I'd imagine that named donations prevail over anonymous in most cases.
- XorNot 11y agoExactly. The fact Sweden can do this is a comfort: it speaks to amazing inventory management.
- kryptiskt 11y agoSo that if a donor is diagnosed with an infectious disease you have to throw away all blood in the centre? There are good reasons to track the provenance of blood.
- jacquesm 11y agoNo, but you will have to throw away all blood products from that donor and you will have to pass the message back to the collection point so they can alert the donor. So yes, you need to be able to track the provenance of the blood but the final recipient of the product should not have the ability to contact the donor directly, nor should the donor have knowledge of when and/or where their blood was used. This can all be done without having a phone number or other identifiable data attached to the blood product other than a serial number which goes back to the collection point. Centralizing this data is a very dangerous thing and could have un-intended consequences for the donors.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Centralizing this data is a very dangerous thing and could have un-intended consequences for the donors. Such as...?
- jacquesm 11y agoLet's see: - your blood contains your DNA, so you not only give out something to help others, you also give out your biological finger-print - insurance companies might use lab results + identifying info to deny insurance - your blood contains information on your heritage And I'm sure there are many more examples like that. Maybe I'm over-sensitive to data collected for no particular purpose but NL has a pretty bad record when it comes to this sort of thing and in fact people have died because of the innocent collection of something as mundane as religious affiliation.
- anigbrowl 11y agoAll reasonable concerns, but your identity is connected to blood donations anyway in many places anyway, not least because of disease management as discussed above. If any bad actors in the scenarios you describe want access to your DNA and you are int he habit of donating blood, it's trivially easy for them to get it anyway. In the US you have to give your name, show ID, and give your SSN to donate blood (at least to he Red Cross), so any idea you had of anonymity is already long gone. I don't feel like researching it on a country-by-country basis right now but I don't think that IDing yourself is exceptional. The only new thing I'm seeing here is that you get a text message when your donation is used, and it's in that context I'm saying it's a good thing. I can't donate blood in the US (have spent too much of my life in Europe, so it's possible my blood is too socialist) but I wouldn't have had any expectation of privacy if I did so beyond normal confidentiality laws.
- Rebelgecko 11y agoOr how about the other way? If you know when your blood is used and where, you might be able to make assumptions about who is getting transfusions. Granted that's probably small potatoes compared to all of the other privacy concerns in health, but hopefully this program is optional for the recipients.
- SCAQTony 11y agoThe Gamification of saving lives! fk yeah! - "I AM LEVEL 3, yesssssss." (3-lives saved)
- sajal83 11y agoMany places already do that... counting the number of times a person has donated (not actually used) and giving them some status accordingly.
- joezydeco 11y agoExcept we now live in the Internet age...where nothing happens unless you can post it on Twitter or Facebook.
- giarc 11y agoThat's exactly it. I'm proud when I go and donate and I get to show the staff at the end my card that says I've donated 47 times. I spoke with a Canadian Blood Service staff member once and she said that people compete all the time. You can donate plasma (or platelets) every 2 weeks, so people use that to pad their numbers.
- cosmolev 11y agoAnd that's the right place to use it to get people involved. Better than "7 people like your comment", "John and Mary endorsed you", ... This is really one of a few examples of "hooking" people for good. There is even a book "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" about it: http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products-ebook/dp/B00HJ4A43S http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Product...
- girvo 11y agoI wish I was allowed to donate blood. This is a great idea, I hope other countries adopt it.
- ddorian43 11y agoWhy aren't you allowed ?
- logicallee 11y agoit doesn't really matter, does it? I wouldn't ask here, it's not everyone's business. (not that it implies anything specific, it's just not really strangers' business - OP has detailed profile info up. I would ask in private if you really want to know.)
- ddorian43 11y agoI think he implied that it is for a dumb reason why he isn't allowed, that's why i asked. But yeah, i shouldn't.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y agoIf the commenter hadn't intended for someone to ask the question why did they mention it? Conversational protocol dictates the hearer engage with what was said. Asking for more information on one or more aspects of an open communication is normal.
- ptaipale 11y agoIn different countries, there are various reasons, some better than others. Chronic illnesses like hepatitis, having had gay sex, having lived in Britain in 1980's. These contribute some risk to donating blood.
- giarc 11y agoAlso having malaria, paying money or sex for drugs, lived in Africa for 6 months, ever had a blood transfusion, dura matter transplant... the list goes on. In Canada, every time you donate you answer about 13 questions on your own, then a nurse asks you about 10 "high risk" questions. You can tell they could recite them in their sleep, and I'm almost at the point where I could as well.
- logicallee 11y agoLife hacks. On a date in Sweden? Arrange your buddy to send you a text message saying you just saved someone's life. Watch jealousy turn to desire when you get a text message (another girl??), and say, "Oh - I just saved someone's life. See?" I'm just kidding. My real point is that a mailed letter (or email) sounds more appropriate than a text message. But then again maybe not!
- spiritplumber 11y agoWouldn't work in the US, I find that the social value of having saved someone's life is somewhere between zero and negative, unless that someone belongs to your interlocutor's subculture. You tell an investor in SF, in passing, "I talked a junkie off the bridge and took her away before the cops showed up, and let her stay at my place for six months until she cleaned up", and they'll think you are mad, not honorable. (Not a true story; composite of three separate incidents)
- imjustsaying 11y ago>"I talked a junkie off the bridge and took her away before the cops showed up, and let her stay at my place for six months until she cleaned up" It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one who got an ex-girlfriend this way.
- spiritplumber 11y agoNah, I have a guest room with its own door. Don't stick your dip in crazy, and all that.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI'd probably think both.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 11y agoSo, how long until someone figures out that they don't actually need to save someone's life to send a text message? And what about using the blood when someone's life is not saved, does that not warrant a text message? How come the entities using the blood and/or distributing it have access to the phone numbers of the donors?
- Trombone12 11y agoYou try turning up at ha hospital with a bag of blood and saying "here's some blood, but I won't say who it's from".
- jacquesm 11y agoI'd hope that would get you arrested in short order and held until you come up with a very good and verifiable explanation about where the blood came from. Who donated the blood is important at the point of capture, where you want to analyse the blood and make sure that neither the plasma nor the cells carry anything other than benefits to the eventual recipient. But who exactly sourced the blood should be of no concern to the agency that ends up using it, and if there is a problem the only thing they should have to go back on should be an un-identifiable serial number that they can use to report back to the collection agency to make sure they destroy the rest of the blood from that lot and mark that particular donor as un-acceptable. What should happen beyond that is up to the local legislation, presumably the donor should be warned and the screening process should be improved so a similar thing will never happen again, if a problem with blood products is only discovered at the time of use then that's a process failure much more than a problem with that blood.
- cdcarter 11y agoThis may well be what happens. The hospital informs the agency that they've used SN547825482 and that agencies database triggers a text message.
- user 11y ago>try turning up at ha hospital with a bag of blood I have Rhnull and that is the only way I would donate my blood, ever. My mom (who also has this type) has been looked down as a emergency bag of blood on a few occasions and living with that is terrible experience. In fact, I installed tor just to post this.
- AriaMinaei 11y agoThis could work not just for donating blood, but for pretty much any kind of service. Imagine if you could see, in real time, how your job affects other people's lives, even in the most mundane way. It would let you see the value of what you do, and give you a reason to do it better.
- fabiandesimone 11y agoI always thought about this about taxes. If you could choose from a list of projects a la Kickstarter where YOU choose where your taxes go to, I'm sure people would not only feel better about taxes in general but would allow them to get involved in said projects.
- danieltillett 11y agoThe problem with this approach is the areas of need rarely aligns with areas of desire. What happens to those areas that need resources that nobody really cares about?
- Gu3rr1lla 11y agoWell if you agree with the assumption that we live in a democracy and that for anything to exist in a democracy a majority of people have to support it? Such as welfare for the poor and sick, etc. If we took away that democracy that majority of people will still exist the only difference is they get to voluntary choose where to put their resources (meaning 100% goes to the charities) rather than having most of it spent by bureaucrats and politicians on other things such as war, debt, etc.
- minot 11y ago> What happens to those areas that need resources that nobody really cares about? This is why taxes cannot be donations. Indeed, they are not donations. I remember the people at institutional giving at my old college say that nobody wants their name on a parking lot.
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- xelfer 11y agoThis also recently started happening in Australia, I got a text message 3 weeks ago saying my blood was used in Liverpool hospital. It was pretty fun knowing where it helped someone.
- softgrow 11y agoMight work for some people but not for me. I'd start worrying I'm not donating enough. With plasma you can donate every two weeks which is pretty often, I only go once every four weeks. However I liked the chocolates that were handed out at the blood bank around Christmas time last year (Australia). Oh and in case your wondering they used to offer beer in refreshment but that was cut out a couple of years ago. But they do have wifi now :-).
- jonwachob91 11y agoInteresting. In the US you can donate plasma twice a calendar week as long 48 hours separates the donations. I use to do red blood and double red as frequently as a I could, the day I became eligible again was the day I donated. When you do something like that you can't worry if you are donating enough - you know that you are doing everything you are allowed to do.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoMy friend, you may be suffering from ALAS. http://www.davidbrin.com/givingplague.html http://www.davidbrin.com/givingplague.html
- 4h53n 11y agoIn fact, here in Turkey, a similar service is in use for several years now.
- notNow 11y agoHasn't the gamification and the application of Pavlovian behavior online gone already too far? I mean this trend of employing FB notifications like Dopamine/Serotonin rewarding systems is getting out of hand and we need to address it properly.
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- tomjen3 11y agoBlood donation is not very efficient charity and the service is homophobic and (in the US) nationalistic (no the entirety of Europe doesn't have mad cow disease). Instead of sending these feel good SMS messages they should work on solving those two issues.
- icebraining 11y agoSo what do you think Sweden should do about the nationalism of the US' blood donation system?
- decafbad 11y agoTurkish Red Crescent does that too. It works.
- relicscattergun 11y agoAm I the only one who thinks donating blood is a bad idea based on personality of the donor? I know that this article refers to organ transplant, but I also have read articles talking about how blood donations can affect personality: http://www.medicaldaily.com/can-organ-transplant-change-recipients-personality-cell-memory-theory-affirms-yes-247498 http://www.medicaldaily.com/can-organ-transplant-change-reci...
- gravypod 11y agoIt makes me sad to see people who donate or contribute to charity for popularity. The idea behind giving blood--or other community services--is to help society as a hole, not your ego. Charity should not be flashed like a status symbol. If a charity is wasting time and money developing systems to stroke your ego, they should just skip the step and sell themselves to Fleshlight. Their time and money should be spent on improving the lives of those in need, not by stroking off some people.
- DanBC 11y agoThis is a simple and cheap method to get more people to male the altruistic[1] step of donating blood. It's not much fun; it's sort of awkward for some people; we could probably do woth more people donating blood. The blood banks have a choice: spend money on tv ads, or spend money doing this. Why are ads okay and this terrible? [1] I'm not interested in philosophy of altruism.
- gravypod 11y agoWho said ads are okay? Wasting money that you promise to put towards a goal on something else is, in my mind, wrong. People already know donating blood is a good and charitable act. We don't need someone to tell us that.
- DanBC 11y agoHow are they supposed to get more people to donate blood?