Mein Blut: a mobile app that digitalises blood donation

Mein Blut (engl. “My Blood”) is the blood donation app developed by the Austrian Red Cross, currently being rolled out in different regions after a successful launch in Upper Austria. 

It is available for Android and iOS and offers efficiency and transparency advantages for both regular and first-time donors. To prepare for their blood donation, donors can find appointments for local blood drives and fill out the required medical questionnaire in advance. Additionally, the app includes a digital donor pass, information about current eligibility for donation and most importantly, a report of all laboratory testing.

In our blood bank in Upper Austria, we see constantly increasing demand for blood products. In contrast however, the number of first time donors has declined over the last few years and the average age of our frequent donors has increased.

Especially to attract young donors, it is necessary to transfer blood donation to modern times. This digitalisation effort streamlines blood donation and the processes associated with it. Medical and sensitive data need special security measures and legal requirements concerning data protection have to be fulfilled, so achieving a viable product that can deliver these sorts of services is an achievement in and of itself. The usage of the mobile app solution is free and optional, traditional donation with a paper questionnaire is still possible.

The app is installed on the donor’s smartphone and accompanies the donor through the donation process and also provides them with all associated data. The central back-end ensures security and two-factor authentication of the app. This back-end is able to connect to multiple donor centers and retrieve the data in real-time from the donation systems. Sensitive data remains in the blood donation systems. Data storage in the back-end and the user‘s smartphone is reduced to an absolute minimum. Access to sensitive data is only possible after verification at the blood center or a mobile blood drive.

The app is fully rolled out in Upper Austria and other provinces of Austria are going to follow. The qualitative user feedback is outstanding, new features are requested regularly. There are already 35,000 registered users and more than 40% of donors use their smartphone to fill out the questionnaire.