Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life • Hacker News Board

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#41

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 12:35 PM UTC

Trombone12 wrote: post #17

jacquesm wrote: post #12

So, 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?

You 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".

I'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.

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#42

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 12:37 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #27

jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a terrible idea. That reverse track from specific use of blood to phone number of the source should not even exist.

So 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.

No, 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.

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#43

Post by jonwachob91 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

softgrow wrote: post #35

Might 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 th…

Interesting. 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.

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#44

Post by ceejayoz » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:05 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #42

kryptiskt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 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.

No, 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 al…

> Centralizing this data is a very dangerous thing and could have un-intended consequences for the donors.

Such as...?

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#45

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #34

AriaMinaei wrote: post #14

This 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.

> "How your job affects other people's lives" You mean, how a software developer might be helping companies be more efficient, meaning they can now lay off people with lower income jobs because their services are no longer required? I like this idea for blood donations though!

That assumes that those jobs would have existed without your software - and that the factory/warehouse wouldn't simply have closed and caused even further job loss.

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#46

Post by cosmolev » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

SCAQTony wrote: post #4

The Gamification of saving lives! f k yeah! - "I AM LEVEL 3, yesssssss." (3-lives saved)

And 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-Product...

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#47

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

oadam wrote: post #40

fabiandesimone wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

Some countries in EU have 2% of income tax support, i.e. If you are a tax payer in Lithuania and would like to support the development of non-profit/school/academy or sport club, you can do so by transferring 2% of your income tax to the administrating enterprise. And you can change/donate it every year.

While that is very good, at the same time 2% is pretty much nothing. Why not make it so that 50% is payers choice? (I wouldn't make it 100% only because there are too many people who wouldn't want to fund the military).

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#48

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

minot wrote: post #30

danieltillett wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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?

> 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.

It is not a donation, because you don't get chose not to pay. You get to choose where to send the money. I don't see how this couldn't work with a high portion of the money.

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#49

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:34 PM UTC

fabiandesimone wrote: post #18

AriaMinaei wrote: post #14

This 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.

I 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.

Actually I think I could work such that when you are unemployed or getting money from the government coffers you also get a notice with a name and picture of the person who payed tax to give you that. Sorta like "your income this months was made possible by the hard work of $NAME" - would you be more or less inclined to abuse government founds this way?

Re: Blood donors in Sweden get a text message when their blood saves someone's life

#50

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #44

jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 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 al…

> Centralizing this data is a very dangerous thing and could have un-intended consequences for the donors. Such as...?

Let'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.