Blood Donor App, an opportunity to save lives in the palm of your hand

The American Red Cross is well known for their mobile apps, especially for those emergency and disaster related, like First Aid, or Tornado, Earthquake and Hurricane apps. All these apps literally help saving many lives by giving practical guidelines on how to act in critical situations.

One of the most important activities in saving lives is blood donation. Giving blood is also one of the easiest ways to save someone's life.

The American Red Cross added another useful and unique app to their list. Their Blood Donor app is made for all blood donors and all those in need for blood donation. This app is basically based on The American Red Cross blood donation website. It allows donors to locate nearby blood drives or to schedule appointments at donation centers at their convenience, with added social media component, such as earning rewards from premier retailers, following your blood's journey from donation through delivery and creating or joining a 'lifesaving' team and tracking its impact on a national leaderboard.

All these interactive social features show what blood donations really is – a fun way to save someone's life.

In order to use Blood Donor app, you'll need to create an account, which will require your email address, name and ZIP code for better personalization and suggestions on available nearby blood drives. Once you choose your username, password, and optionally, your donor card (you can create an account and use the app even if you don't have one) you're good to go.

The home screen is basically your profile page that includes some general information like your blood type (which is populated the first time you give blood) and the amount of total units you donated. From the home screen you can schedule appointment by either tapping on Manage Appointments button or on the calendar icon on the top right.  This gives you an option to choose date at your convenience.

For example, you can make an appointment today, in the next 14 days or to choose your own date. Once you made a choice, you'll be asked about the most suitable time, i.e. morning, afternoon, evening, or any time available. After you choose donation type among three options (blood, power red and platelets) you'll be asked to pick your location, which will give you the list of all drives to donate your blood, based on the ZIP code you've provided or near your current location, which you can sort by distance or date you've chosen. You can also add location manually, for example, if you're away from your place, but you'd still like to donate blood. 

Another option when scheduling an appointment is adding a sponsor code, which is a unique code for a specific organizational blood drive.

Once you confirm the location and available date and time, you'll have an option to add the appointment to your calendar, or to share it with your friends and family via text message, email or social apps. You can also ask for directions on how to get to the drive you've chosen, whether you'll go with your car, public transport or on foot.

Option to schedule appointment is simple and handy, especially because it could be rescheduled or canceled. If you, for example, scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday at 9:30AM, but in the meantime realized that you won't be able to come on time (your car broke down, your work schedule changed, etc.), you're able to cancel scheduled appointment or to re-schedule it on different date/time.

Thing that makes this app stand out is its social component, with a lot of interactive and engaging features. First thing is capturing the moment by taking a selfie of yourself donating blood, and sharing it with your friends or over social networks. We found this a nice way to recruit new blood donors, especially if accompanied with powerful message or hashtags. 

Another interesting social feature is unlocking awards and collecting badges, based on your donations. You can access both Rewards and Badges by tapping on star icon on the home screen. You'll see all available rewards to unlock, mostly various discounts. Badges are separated in several categories and could be shared via social networks. 

Impact feature allows you to see and share your individual impact, based on potential lives saved (knowing that one donation saves up to 3 lives). You can also create or join a donation team, and see leaderboard with list of all teams and number of potential lives they saved. We found this to be very important feature, helping users to understand the bigger picture behind their donation, and its role in saving lives.

Blood Donor app also allows you to track your donation through stages, and it also provides a lot of educational information about donating blood, from eligibility to describing the entire process, from registration to post-donation refreshments.
Another important feature of this app is the capability to send push notifications alerting the public of blood shortages, which is a vital feature in a disaster setting.

The single drawback was the inability for previous donors to verify their identity using their donor ID.

Still, the Blood Donor app simplifies the process of donating blood, allowing donors to schedule an appointment in under a minute. Its social media component can help spread awareness on the importance of blood donations and recruit new donors.

Benefit: Healthcare professionals, hospitals, as well as general public interested in donating blood, may find this app useful.