How to get more donors!

[chocopinipig]

Our hospital blood bank is handling 2 institutions at the same time. This is not enough for the loads of patients in our hospital requiring blood although we are managing "quite" comfortably with the present set up. Our blood donor pool is mostly replacement coming in from patients relatives/friends, and majority get rejected due to the high prevalence of hepatitis B in the area, not only that most are simply afraid of the "needle" and therefore are reluctant to donate.

My question is:

1. Can you post your ideas/experience on how to get more donors to donate?

we're really out of ideas..

2. what incentives do you usually offer? may sound stupid but there must be something based on your experience that really attracted a lot of donors without costing a lot.

3. Some suggested a moving caravan of sort going from town to town looking for donors..whats your opinion on this.

it would really help if you post your ideas or questions. thanks

[donellda]

We get all of our blood products from ARC and Michigan Community Blood Centers but we do sponsor blood drives a couple of times a year with the Red Cross. Donor response to the blood drives has been very poor. The most successful one in the past few years was a success because the hospital offered free tickets to the hospital gala (fancy dinner) to the department that had the most donors. It sounds like you are going to the community for donors so that probably wouldn't work.

My husband donated at the Canadian Blood Services a few months ago when his friend celebrated his 25th donation. He invited all of his friends to donate with him and the donor center supplied a cake for the donors he recruited. It was a nice gesture I thought.

[KariBethW]

I work at a blood center here in Alaska. We have a hard time at our hospitals (I like your prize idea for the department that brings in the most donors I will have to try to find something like that for my next hospital drive).

The Mobile thing they are talking about might be something like our coach or "LIFEmobile." It is a big motorcoach just like a motor home or school bus that has been outfitted for blood donation. It is actually a very useful tool for blood collections. Most of our mobile drives prefer the coach a lot of the time.

We have offered a lot of different incentives and I think the ones that work the most are generally the ones that offer some kind of free advertising. So if someone is willing to have a giveaway AND advertise it that might make a big difference.

As a recruiter my life is all about trying to figure out how to bring in more donors and it is incredibly difficult sometimes. If you don't want to go mobile finding businesses that want to hold "in house blood drives" can be an option as well.

Also, government employees generally get 4 hours of time off for blood donation so maybe if someone has contacts in local offices that could be helpful.

Those are just a few ideas from my experience.

[OPUS104]

Our center has 6 mobile units (buses)for setting up outside a building, also two vans to carry our equipment to their sites if we are setting up inside a building. We waive a donor's (or any member of their familiy) rbc fee for a year if they donate. Also the usual free t-shirt and alot of times we have free coupons from vendors. i.e. Baskin Robbins,Chik-Fila. When we have special promo's we include all donors who try to donate but are defered for HEALTH reasons.

[Tony Lyn]

Corporate challenge would be good. Say...Ford employees vs Chrysler. Who know, maybe one of them will donate a car as a grand prize. Yeah....easier said than done, but a good challenge for your public relations department?!

[GbreadMan]

I have been a platelet donor in the past in the NY/NJ area, but none of the drives bring their platelet equipment with them. The closest platelet donation center is 50 miles away (100 mile round-trip) so that is not an option unless I'm in the area for some other reason.

Most of these blood centers have regularly-scheduled whole-blood drives within 10 miles of me. Yet I attempt to go online or call them to schedule platelets at these drives and they never have platelet equipment available. I don't know if it's because the equipment is so fragile that it can't withstand the trip or what (one of the phlebotomists said the machine can make a real mess when it malfunctions).

I can give platelets once a week; I can only give whole blood 4 or 5 times a year, yet all the blood centers here frustratingly complain that, "we need more platelet donors". The bottom line is the logistics make it impossible to give platelets.

[Liz]

GbreadMan, are the drives in a blood-mobile? If so the machines should do just fine.

As a regular donor I would not advise you to donate weekly, although your enthusiasm is outstanding.

12 donations a year of platelets is allowed for your well-being.

Whole blood donation for a regular donor is every 3 months.

I must say your altruism makes you an exemplary donor!