American Red Cross, since launching RapidPass a year ago, has helped millions of Americans save lives faster.
A potential donor starts the blood donation process at the comfort of their own home saving time in when the person comes in for the actual blood donation.
It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to fill out forms online. During the first year of implementation, RapidPass has saved approximately 90,000 hours for blood and platelet donors.
RapidPass has been used more than one million times since its first introduction. It takes approximately one hour for the whole blood donation process. RapidPass has helped by speeding up the process.
RapidPass technology works by allowing donors to answer health history questions from a computer. Upon arrival at the donation site, they can present a PDF copy on their mobile devices or have printout copy.
American Red Cross needs around 14,000 blood and platelet donations each day. Blood donations are collected by 2,600 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide according to Red Cross.
Screening donors is extremely important. There are several incurable diseases that can be passed through blood plasma. HIV is a very good example.
HIV infection can be spread through bodily fluid and transfusion is one way to spread the virus.
Another recent threat is Zika. It was only last year that medical researchers discovered that people can be infected through blood transfusion.
The Zika virus remains in the blood for about one week. There are no approved tests to screen the blood for the virus according to a report by The New York Times.
According to the report, roughly 3 percent of blood donors tested positive during a French Polynesian outbreak as noted by the American Association of Blood Banks.
Both AABB and the American Red Cross states that Zika has no direct impact on blood donation policies however.
Although both organizations will not prevent blood donors who had sex with persons that came from a Zika infected area from donating, donors are advised to abstain for 28 days before giving blood.
