Facebook to amplify calls for blood
In an interesting twist on how to get young people involved in healthcare, a nonprofit group called “Takes all Types” has released an app on Facebook, per TechCrunch.
When a patient is in need of blood that isn’t available, it becomes a life and death situation. Historically the Red Cross will make efforts to alert the public during a shortage. But there may be a better way – leverage the social networks to get the word out. If shortages of a certain type of blood occur in a certain zip code, having a database of willing donors in that zip code to contact may be the most efficient way to solve the problem quickly.
That’s where Takes All Types (TAT), a non-profit organization, comes in. Users install their just-released Facebook application, tell it their location and blood type, and say how often they are willing to be contacted to donate blood (maximum is every 57 days). If a shortage occurs, they’ll contact you via the methods that you authorize (Facebook, email, text message, etc.)
This is a perfect example of innovation helping to move healthcare information and services (in this case, a call on social responsibility) to where consumers already are. This furthers the trend toward placing clinics in convenient retail locations or bringing doctors where people want to be, whether at home, in the office or even to the streets of the local neighborhood.
The trends, as health becomes more of a consumer-focused culture, will be to bring care back outside the massive institutions such as the hospital and back into our own homes, with all the savings in overhead and unnecessary technology that come with a occupying a hospital bed.
Instead, lightweight technologies enabled by the internet and via telemedicine and an increasingly sophisticated doctor’s bag will bring healthcare services back into the community, specified to the level of services required by and personalized to the consumer.
