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

independent.co.uk

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

#71

Post by jessriedel »

SCAQTony wrote: post #4

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

I think this is importantly different. What's usually called gamification is when you create a ticker/counter/award and convince a person to pursue that as a goal even though it has no other real-world importance. This basically hi-jacks the natural good feeling people get when they accomplish an intermediate goal (on the way to an intrinsic goal). It's like the fact that I can make up a goal (flicking a folded piece of paper through a gap in a cubicle -- and arbitrary game) and it feels good to accomplish it.

On the other hand, the blood donation text message is connecting the person to the goal they already had: to help others. It makes the satisfaction of this pre-existing goal more salient and unambiguous. I think it's a lot like the theory behind clicker training for animals.

https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/click...

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

#72

Post by giarc »

sajal83 wrote: post #7
SCAQTony wrote: post #4

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

Many places already do that... counting the number of times a person has donated (not actually used) and giving them some status accordingly.

That'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.

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

#73

Post by giarc »

ptaipale wrote: post #10
ddorian43 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't you allowed ?

In 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.

Also 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.

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

#74

Post by efraim »

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…

The blood bags doesn't show the donor's phone number, it has a bar code on it with a serial number. My guess is that when they remove the bag from stock, they scan the bag and a text message gets sent from some server. The recipient have no way of knowing where the blood came from unless they have access to the database, which of course they don't. The blood donor doesn't know who got the blood, only that it's been used.

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

#75

Post by relicscattergun »

Am 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-reci...

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

#76

Post by cmdrfred »

rory096 wrote: post #58
pavel_lishin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to a slapdash google search, the 2015 federal income due to taxes is $3.9 trillion, and about half of that comes from income tax. 2% of that is $20 million dollars. I want to say that that's not nothing, but the Rosetta equipment alone cost €220 million. I'm not even sure how much of an impact $20m would have if you spread it across, e.g., the New York public school system.

($3.9T / 2) * 2% = $39 billion

https://www.google.com/search?q=2%25+of+3%2C900%2C000%2C000%...

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

#77

Post by cmdrfred »

cosmolev wrote: post #46
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...

Genius. Maybe go the same route with organ donation, let you brag about how many people you saved on the way out. "And Joan is survived by two loyal sons as well as two children who formerly had leukemia."

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

#78

Post by BurningFrog »

danieltillett wrote: post #24
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.

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?

It's hard to imagine any system where areas that nobody cares for get funded.

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

#79

Post by kalleboo »

ddorian43 wrote: post #6
girvo wrote: post #5

I wish I was allowed to donate blood. This is a great idea, I hope other countries adopt it.

Why aren't you allowed ?

There are lots of arbitrary rules out there to minimize risk. I lived in Sweden for more than 6 months before 2004 so they deem me a BSE risk. Oddly enough Sweden didn't have any cases of BSE until 2006 so I'm not sure about the logic behind that one.

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

#80

Post by cdcarter »

tomjen3 wrote: post #48
minot wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Because we should budget for the cost of actual programs, and not have to guess based on how much various constituencies might allocate their tax dollars.
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