mHealth: Blood Donation Service in Bangladesh
A. H. M. Saiful Islam1, Nova Ahmed2, Kamrul Hasan3, and Md. Jubayer4
1
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Daffodil International University
2,3
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, North South University, Bangladesh, 4 Department of Computer Science
and Engineering, University of Development Alternative, Bangladesh,
1
saifcse@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd,2 nova.ahmed.2011@gmail.com,3 hasan8685@yahoo.com, 4 jubayer13@gmail.com
Abstract— Communication technology has advanced significantly
over the last decade enabling people to communicate anytime from
anywhere using a multiplicity of devices. However, the power of
this advancement in communication technology has hardly been
leveraged in health care industry. The purpose of this paper is to
develop a blood donation service to assist in the management of
blood donor records and ease/or control the distribution of blood in
various parts of the country basing on the demands.
The blood donation service in Bangladesh offers functionality to
quick access to donor records collected from various parts of the
country. It enables monitoring of the results and performance of the
blood donation activity.
Index Terms—mHealth, Blood Donation, Mobile SMS, Wide
Mobile coverage, health care.
I. INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh has already developed different communication
systems throughout the country as PSTN, Internet etc. But
Cellular communication is the most successful among them
since it provides the widest coverage area in our country.
Besides this, it has even connected the people of such remote
places where electricity has not been reached yet. Hence, the
cellular communication system will be the right choice for
applying our proposed blood donation service in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in
the world having a population of about 140 million.
According to the statistics of the year 2007, in Bangladesh
the density of population per square kilometer is 941 [1]. The
Constitution of Bangladesh provides healthcare rights to
every citizen. The government is determined to extend basic
healthcare delivery to all citizens.
The land area of Bangladesh is 147,570 sq. km. Bangladesh
is situated in the eastern part of the South Asian subcontinent.
The country is bordered by India on the east, west and north
and by the Bay of Bengal and a small border strip with
Myanmar on the south.
In the year 2000, 47% blood was collected form professional
blood donors, 27% was collected from family replacement
donors and 26% blood was collected from voluntary non-
remunerated blood donors [2].
The availability of various donor populations is gradually
changing. Total number of blood units screened in 97 centers
from January 2001 to May 2003 were 3,23,642. Out of them,
18.01% were paid donors, 26.01% were voluntary donors and
55.98% were family replacement donors.
All countries have now realized a need for regulation and
implementation of a quality system as well as increased their
efforts towards donor recruitment and retention. To meet the
growing blood demand, some SEAR (South-East Asia
Region) countries like Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan have
978-1-4799-0400-6/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
launched web based donor management systems. Donors
register themselves on the sites, specifying their blood types
and contact information; requesters do the same, specifying
when they need what blood type. Sometimes requesters must
specify months in advance of elective treatments because of
donation shortages. Two main shortcomings of web based
approaches are: unable to handle emergency situations and
lack of internet access for majority of people in SEAR
countries. In existing model of blood donation , anonymity of
donor information is not maintained which is a vital issue in
donor recruitment system urged by (World Health
Organization) WHO. Besides, the existing systems lack in
maintenance of confidentiality and development of donor
motivational program and donor counselling which is vital
for collecting voluntary non-remunerated blood donation.
In this paper we propose mobile based blood donation service
due to availability of mobile phones to provide service in
emergency very quickly.
II. RELATED WORKS
Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) is an integral and
indispensable part of the healthcare system now. The priority
objective of BTS is to ensure safety, adequacy, accessibility
and efficiency of blood supply at all levels [3].
To develop the blood donation service we find some
implementation of this service in other countries.
Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BRCS) has a manual
system to collect/keep blood donor records and disseminate
results to blood donors (BDs) who are scattered throughout
the country.
In India, a smart phone based Virtual Blood Bank has been
proposed [8]. This system uses General Packet Radio Service
(GPRS) and a centralized server to store blood donors and
blood banks information. People who seek blood also
communicate with the server through their mobile devices,
specifying their blood type and current location in a
subscriber application. The server matches the blood type and
location with the profiles of registered donors or blood banks,
retrieves the information and sends it to the seeker via GPRS.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has launched a Short
Message Service (SMS) -based blood bank service [9].
The biggest adopters of mobile technology were India with
11 projects and South Africa and Uganda with 6 each [10].
Examples of such mobile projects include Sending mobile
phone owners diseases updates via SMS, Letting health
workers in Uganda log data on mobile devices from the field,
In South Africa, the SIMpill is a sensor-equipped pill bottle
with a SIM card that informs doctors whether patients are
taking their tuberculosis medicine., In Uganda, a multiple- Feasibility study for m-Health implementation in
choice quiz about HIV/AIDS was sent to 15,000 subscribers Bangladesh
inviting them to answer questions and seek tests. Those who In Bangladesh, mobile phone subscribers grew by 1.68 crore
completed the quiz were given free airtime minutes. At the or 24.48 per cent in 2011 as the number of total subscribers
end of the quiz, a final SMS encouraged participants to go for of six operators reached 8.54 crore at the end of December
voluntary testing. The number of people who did so increased [11].
from 1000 to 1400 over a 6-week period, In the Amazonas
state of Brazil, health workers filled in surveys on their The growth in subscribers in the year, however, was lower
phones about the incidences of mosquito-borne dengue fever, compared to the growth in 2010 when the users grew by 1.62
and in Mexico, a medical hotline called MedicallHome lets crore, or 30.91 per cent year-on-year.
patients send medical questions via SMS. According to data released by the Bangladesh
Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the total mobile
Our proposed system has been described in details in the subscribers reached 8.54 crore at the end of December 2011
methodology section. The proposed system is able to provide from 6.86 crore in December 2010 [11].
service even in emergency situation using zipcode.
Leading operator Grameenphone had 65.23 lakh subscribers
in 2011 as its total subscribers reached 3.65 crore at the end
III. MHEALTH TRENDS of the year. The growth of the company’s subscribers was
21.76 per cent in 2011.
What is mHealth?
Subscriber-base of Airtel Bangladesh, which was previously
mHealth broadly encompasses the use of mobile known as Warid, grew by 52.40 per cent in 2011. The
telecommunication and multimedia technologies as they are company added 20.70 lakh subscribers to take its base to
integrated within increasingly mobile and wireless health care 60.20 lakh.
delivery systems. It can be defined as “mobile computing,
The second largest operator Banglalink added 44.26 lakh
medical sensor, and communications technologies for health
subscribers in 2011 to take its total client base to 2.38 crore
care” .
while Robi’s total number of subscribers reached 1.61 crore
Overview of mHealth
as it netted in 37.70 lakh users in the year.
The rapid expansion of mobile information and
communications technologies (ICT) within health service The only Code division multiple access (CDMA) operator of
delivery and public health systems has created a range of new country, Citycell added only 13,000 subscribers in 2011
opportunities to deliver new forms of interactive health while the state-run Teletalk got only 7,000 subscribers to take
services to patients, clinicians, and caregivers alike [4]. In their total base to 18.2 lakh and 12.18 lakh respectively [11].
this paper we are referring to, mobile health or mHealth, as
Besides, the current status of computer and Internet
the segment of healthcare delivery broadly defined as health-
infrastructure of Bangladesh at summarized form is given in
related services to patients, clinicians, and caregivers through
mobile technology platforms on cellular or wireless networks. No. of ISPs 219(80% ISPs are located in
Mobile technologies can include, but are not limited to, Dhaka)
tablets, cell phones (hardware and software) and Number of Internet Users 0.3
smartphones, mobile-enabled diagnostic and monitoring million
devices, or devices with mobile alert systems. Internet Users 19.04(per 10000 inhabitants)
mHealth changes the traditional delivery of healthcare, Computer Ownership 0.782(per 100 inhabitants)
allowing for continuous, pervasive healthcare anytime, No. of Active Cyber 500
anywhere. With mHealth, providers, caregivers and patients Café / Internet Kiosks
have the opportunity to continuously monitor health Cyber Café’s / Internet 0.19(per 10000 inhabitants)
conditions and access health information outside of the Kiosks
physician’s office, and outside of the patient’s home. The Bandwidth Provided by 32 kbps – 4Mbps
scope and scale of mHealth interventions range from simple Cyber Cafes
direct-to-individual consumer and interactive patient-provider National Bandwidth 68 Mbps(Data)
communications to more complex computer-based systems within the Country
facilitating coordinated patient care and management [5]. National Bandwidth to 112 Mbps
The mHealth market is defined in numerous ways by and from the Country
different analysts. However, by any definition, the mHealth
market has expanded several fold in the last few years alone, National Highest 10Mbps
and is expected to continue to grow at a prodigious rate. The Bandwidth of link
market size of mHealth is projected to reach $4.6 billion by Table-1 [12]: Computer and Internet Infrastructure
2014 and grow to over $12 billion by 2020 [6]. Revenue from Considering both cellular and internet infrastructure of
digital health technology and services (including mobile Bangladesh, It can be stated that E-mail or internet based
devices for chronic disease management, wellness and fitness system is not the optimum solution for blood donation service
programs) - was $1.7 billion in 2010 and is projected to on recent ICT context. Whereas, the mobile SMS based blood
exceed $5.7 billion in 2015 [7]. donation will be revolutionary solution. The utmost rising of
mobile users shows the feasibility of deploying such blood
donation system in current ICT infrastructure of Bangladesh.
In provisos of cost, it is also feasible as a SMS charges only 2
Bangladeshi taka (BDT) per SMS which is marginal enough
to introduce such blood donation system in Bangladesh.
Besides this, the initial cost is also very low. For establishing
such Blood Donation System only a pc and server will be
needed and it can easily be implemented initially within short
budget for once only.
IV. METHODOLOGY: DESCRIPTION OF
THE BLOOD DONATION SERVICE
A client or donor is managed by a mobile telephone. The
collected data is constantly wirelessly transmitted GPRS to a
data centre, from where it is forwarded to responsible
personnel who can assess required information of a donor.
The figure Fig. 1.0 provides a high-level simplified diagram
of the information flow of Blood Donation Service.
The registration process are done wirelessly using GPRS to a
data centre acting as an intermediary between donors/clients.
It provides two services: data repository (collecting and
storage of the received data), streaming service (forwarding
data to a donor or client) using SMS.
query and sends a SMS to five search result of donors,
matching the blood group.
To execute Blood Donation Service any port of the computer
need to be connected with a modem. After the port is located,
the port must be identified and declared ownership by the
program. Then, whenever there is data arriving at the port,
the data will be stored in the buffer, waiting to be accessed.
For the Blood Donation Service System the port parameters
are port no: 4; Baud Rate: 9600; timeout: 30.
The port number will vary from one computer to another.
From the computer’s property we have to identify this
number.
Flow Chart
Initially registration with SMS for high profile mobile or
simple mobile for getting service will be performed in the

Server Request demand Client

for having
Health Provide demand mobil

Fig. 1.0: Architecture of Blood Donation Service

In Fig. 1.0, the network part of the Blood Donation Service
has been depicted. It consists of two device types: 1. Any
mobile phone with messaging capabilities and 2. A Server
(usually a data center) to deploy the database.
Blood donors register for this service through SMS,
specifying their blood groups and other necessary
information in specific format. These are stored in the central
database(data centre).
From the data centre, the data is transferred to the clients.
Data sent to a client can be visualized (e.g. on a laptop or a
personal computer). As the data (donor’s record) are
transmitted wirelessly, mobile network operators play an
important role in the Blood Donation Service’s value chain.
The Blood Donation Service has been developed using
SMS-based functionality. There are several reasons behind
this choice of technology:
1. It enables mass-scale mobile data collection and
messaging.
2. Multiple users from around the world can simultaneously
access the system to send and receive text messages for
blood.
3. runs well even on low powered and older computers,
needing only a Global System for Mobile Communications Fig. 2.0: Flow Chart of the system
(GSM) modem and Subscriber identity module (SIM) card to
get started. Blood Donation Service. Clients as well as Blood donors
Today’s donors may also become tomorrow’s clients. All the need to be registered first for this project to collect donors’
persons are required to be registered to use the Blood record. In the Fig. 2.0, in the flowchart this concept of the
Donation Service. Here all the information is retrieved Blood Donation Service is clearly depicted. Any Client can
based on the mobile phone number. So if a person lost or search Donors’ information using specific format. But in this
changed mobile number he needs to do registration with this case the system first checks whether the client is registered or
number to be involved in this great Blood Donation Service. not. In the flow chart we can clearly observe this option. If
When a query for blood come to server, it makes a quick the person is registered, donor record will be checked and if
matched with the information he will be given specific Fig 3.0 illustates that if blood group is supplied incorrectly,
information from the server. If the person is not registered, a an auto reply will be sent to the client that "Welcome to
SMS will be sent to that person requesting to be registered mHealthCare plz enter correct blood group.
using required code. {A+,O+,B+,AB+,A-,O-,B-,AB-}
Fig. 4.0 illustrates if a registered person applies again for
Functionality of the software registration, the Blood Donation Service will send SMS that
There are concerns about the sustainability of centralized "You are already registered".
voluntary donor systems and their compatibility with the
levels of health care that exist in many developing countries
yet burdening patients' families with the responsibility of
finding replacement blood donors will exacerbate poverty
and reduce the safety of the blood supply.
We have identified major concern regarding blood donation
through a rigorous survey and discussion with blood donors,
recipients and voluntary blood donation organizations. This is
as follow: Where to go, whom to contact: In emergency
situations like accident or trauma, most people don’t know
where to go, whom to contact to get correct blood group. In
the proposed system, we address the problem and provide the
solution.
User friendly and system responsiveness is the key feature of
the proposed system. A blood recipient can query for a
specific blood group specifying location and the type of
urgency. The server matches the blood type and location with
the profiles of registered donors, retrieves the information
and sends it to the client.
The Server is a 24/7 service and anyone, simply having a
mobile phone can make a query for blood any time, any
place. With just one SMS, one has access to hundreds of
participating blood donors.
The software has three fundamental options namely help
option, registration option, demanding blood group option. Fig 3.0: Report if Blood Group is Supplied incorrectly ("Welcome to
Help Option mHealthCare plz enter correct blood group.
For "HELP" a client need to type < HELP> {A+,O+,B+,AB+,A-,O-,B-,AB-})
From the server reply will be : For registration type "<reg>
<blood Group> <zipCode>";
For need of BloodGroup type "<NEED> <blood Group>"
OR <NEED><blood Group><zipCode>";
Registration Option
If someone is not registered and that person send "<reg>
<bg> <zip>" to the particular number and if all the
parameters in the message are correct then that person will
get the message " Welcome to mHealthCare And you are
successfully registered "
Requesting Blood Group Option
For need of BloodGroup a client need to type "<NEED>
<blood Group>" OR <NEED><blood Group><zipCode>";
If blood group is not correctly sent then he will get the
message, "Welcome to mHealthCare plz enter correct blood
group. {A+,O+,B+,AB+,A-,O-,B-,AB-}
If someone is registered and that person send "<reg> <bg>
<zip>" then reply will be "You are already registered"

V. SCREEN SHOTS OF BLOOD DONATION

SERVICE
The figures Fig. 3.0, Fig. 4.0, Fig. 5.0, Fig. 6.0 shown below
illustrates the whole concept of the service provided by the
“Blood Donation Service” .
Fig. 4.0: Report if a registered person applies again for registration ("You
are already registered".)
 Cognitive Walkthrough Strategy encompasses one or a group
of evaluators who inspect a user interface by going through a
set of tasks and assess its understandability and ease of
learning. To evaluate Blood Donation Service, we followed
this strategy. 1. Who will be the users of the system? a.
Graduate students (Computer Science and Eng.), b. undergrad
student(Computer Science and Eng.), c. patients with some
technical knowledge and d. patients without technical
knowledge were chosen as the users. We have tried to cover
all type of end users and both males and females having
different ages.
A survey was taken over 100 students of a private University.
Number of male students were 67 and 33 were female.
Performance of the Blood Donation service are ranked in the
category of poorest, poor, average, rich, richest. It is
evaluated by both male and female students. The whole
scenario is depicted in Table - 2.

% % of
Per of No. of Femal No. of % of
for Stu Female e Male Male
ma dent Studen Studen Stude Stude
nce s ts ts nts nts

Poo
Fig. 5.0: Help Report (For registration "<reg> <blood Group>
<zipCode>"; For need of BloodGroup <NEED> <blood Group> OR
rest 5 3 9.09 2 2.98
<NEED><blood Group><zipCode>") Poo
r 7 4 12.12 3 4.47
Av
era
ge 52 16 48.48 36 53.73
Ric
h 32 9 27.27 23 34.32
Ric
hest 4 1 3 3 4.47
Table-2: Whole Performance of the Blood Donation service
Performance of the Blood Donation service is ranked by both
male and female students and percentage of the performance
is given in the Table – 3 and pictorial representation is given
in Fig.7.
Performance % of Female Students % of Male Students

Poorest 9.09 2.98

Poor 12.12 4.47
Fig. 6.0 : Mobile No. of Required Donor if found
Average 48.48 53.73
Rich 27.27 34.32
Richest 3 4.47

Table-3 Performance of the Blood Donation service according to Gender

Fig. 6.0 : Mobile No. of Required Donor if found

Help service is illustrated in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 illustrates that the
Blood Donation Service provide required mobile no. of the
Donors.

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

EVALUATION OF THE SOFTWARE
To evaluate Blood Donation Service, the following Cognitive Fig: 7: Evaluation of the Blood Donation Service.
walkthrough strategy approach has been used.
The percentage of being impressed is depicted in Table-4 and
Fig. 8.
Yes
Impressed by the functionality of Blood
Donation Service 90
Table-4: percentage of being impressed using the system
Fig. 8: Impression by the functionality of the Software.
And finally how much this project will provide benefits to the
country is summarized in Table-5 and Fig. 9.
Yes No
Will Help Country?
95 5 Technol Ther. 2009;11(2):99–106.
Table-5 : beneficiary to the country
Fig.9: Role of the project for the Country.
VII. CONCLUSION
There is rapidly growing interest in maximizing the benefits
of mobile communication technologies for health in low and
middle income countries, but relatively limited and mostly
pilot-stage efforts at best. Health care organizations must take
the lead, as they are closer to patients than industry, to
examine how such technology solutions may generate direct
health benefits to patients, facilitate the work of overstretched
human resources, create systems that are informed by data
collected at the point of care, and yield cost savings for a
more efficient healthcare delivery system.
This paper has focused the blood donation system in
Bangladesh by suggesting solutions as well as demonstrating
the functionality and performance of the system. An
overview of the system including the relevant conceptual
issues has been discussed. A detailed software and hardware
requirements and realizations of the system has been
described, offering an economical and rather simple, yet
reliable, way to overcome the needs of blood donation of any
areas. And it is the appropriate solution in the current ICT
infrastructural context of Bangladesh.
Anonymity of donor information is maintained through the
database design. It is important to mention that the system
can perform more complex tasks by applying simple
modifications on the designed hardware and software. For
instance, mounting different functionality in the system
which would inform help the user for appointment to visit
doctors, getting instant service of any emergency situation of
a patient by sending a SMS would make a proper feedback
system. Hence, flexibility and efficiency issues, security
No
concerns and economical matters yield to the necessity of
10 having this system installed in every area, from residential
houses to business environments.
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