title: Blood donation mobile applications: are donors ready?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The rapid rise of mobile communication technologies has the potential to dramatically change and improve blood donor recruitment and retention efforts.
  
  
  METHODS
  E-mail invitations were sent to blood donors in a large metropolitan area to participate in a Web-based survey designed to gauge their readiness and interest level for a blood donation mobile application ("app").
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 982 ethnically diverse respondents of various age groups and prior donation experiences were surveyed. Among the respondents, 87.3% had ready access to smart phones. E-mail was chosen by 62.1% as the currently preferred method when contacted by the blood center, followed by texting (10.1%). App features desired by most respondents were the abilities to request appointments 24/7 (76.8%) and to receive appointment confirmations quickly (81.3%). Many were concerned about receiving too many alerts or messages (64.1%) or insufficient protection for personal information (53.5%). Overall, 67.7% of respondents indicated that they were likely to use a blood donation mobile app. Likelihood was not significantly different by sex or ethnicity, and the impact of education level was limited. Donors who currently made donation appointments via telephone or a website were equally likely to use such an app. However, donors older than 45 years were less likely than younger donors (p = 0.001), and donors with more than five lifetime donations were more likely than less frequent donors to use such an app (p = 0.02).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In a metropolitan area, donors are very receptive to using a mobile app to manage their donations.
authors.affiliation: Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California.
authors.forename: Shan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California.
authors.forename: Shelley
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California.
authors.forename: Kasie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Uyeno
authors.affiliation: Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California.
authors.forename: Gay
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Almquist
authors.affiliation: Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California.
authors.forename: Shirong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001782:Blood Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D063731:Mobile Applications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult