Banco de Sangre de Servicios Mutuos in San Juan, Puerto Rico,
recently became the newest customer for Prelude, IDM’s Donor Room
Management System.
“We are very excited in the choice we made of selecting IDM as
our software provider for our blood bank’s automation process.
IDM’s Prelude series proves to be the best in the industry by
providing a user-friendly environment and multi-lingual features
that allows for a more flexible donor screening process,” said
Jose O. Alsina, director of operations for Banco de Sangre de
Servicios Mutuos.
“The dedication to quality and service expressed by IDM’s staff
has been of the utmost importance in making our decision,” Alsina
said.
Banco de Sangre’s purchase coincides with the recent release of
Prelude 1.2, which focuses on greater ease of use for both the
users and donors.
Prelude 1.2 contains a new module, Questionnaire Manager, which
allows users to configure new health history questions and forms.
This revision also enhances the donor registration procedure by
permitting a repeat donor the ability to self-register at a kiosk
with the swipe of a scannable donor card. An automated
installation and upgrade tool was also added.
IDM has exciting plans in the works for Prelude, including an
interface to a handheld device with a built-in scanner for use by
phlebotomy staff to enter collection information. The information
is automatically transferred to Prelude via a wireless network.
This revision, which IDM expects to release in the fourth quarter
this year, will also include several enhancements to current
functionality.
Press Release...
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Welcome to IDM Accent, a quarterly newsletter aimed at sharing
pertinent blood-banking industry information, as well as updating
IDM customers on current events and products.
This second edition of IDM Accent looks at possible impact of a
Bird Flu Pandemic and the importance of preparedness. In this
edition we also look at how bandwidth should be considered when
deploying a new application or network, the recent IDM Users
Conference, new products and more.
If you are interested in submitting an article for the next
issue or have a suggested topic please email the editor at
idmaccent@idm.com.
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Bird Flu Planning
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With the threat of the H5N1 avian flu virus mutating to allow
direct human-to-human transmission and likely global spread,
high-ranking and credible professionals in the public health
sector are taking the risk of an influenza pandemic seriously.
Government agencies have released tips on how individuals and
companies can prepare, and experts are looking
into how this advice can translate into blood center operations.
Possible scenarios
According to figures released by the government website
www.PandemicFlu.gov
and extrapolated from previous pandemics of influenza A, as
many as 30 percent of the U.S. population could be infected (90
million people) with as many as 45 million seeking outpatient
care. The estimates for hospital admissions range from less than
900,000 for a moderate outbreak, such as occurred in 1958 and
1968, to almost 10 million for a severe outbreak, such as occurred
in 1918 when almost 2 million U.S. residents died.
Vaccines and antiviral drugs might help after the outbreak
occurs, but there will be limited supplies of both, according to
the government website. However, existing flu vaccines would not
protect against a mutated virus, and current methods may take up
to six months to develop and test new vaccines.
Recent news suggests that a different approach has promise in
reducing the lag time for release of new vaccines. This approach
is being developed by
Novavex.
Personal preparations
Health care and government officials urge individuals and
industries to take precautions both personally and professionally.
According to the government website, personal planning should take
into account the age and special needs of the family. The very
young and elderly may be at higher risk for more serious disease.
Schools will likely be closed to prevent or curtail the spread of
infection, which will disrupt many families, especially those in
which both parents work outside the home. Employers need to
reconsider work rules to accommodate these situations in advance
as they relate to leave from work to care for sick family members.
Having two weeks of non-perishable food and water stored in
advance should also be considered because supply chains are likely
to be significantly disrupted.
Blood center operations
Blood center planning is even more complicated. The infection
rates will reduce the eligible donor base as well as the staff to
collect, process and test donations.
Fortunately, elective surgeries are expected to be curtailed,
if not eliminated completely, due to the limited resources of
hospitals. This may be a time when double red cell donations would
be especially beneficial.
If schools are cancelled, so too will the blood drives
scheduled for schools. Supply chains are likely to be disrupted
and blood centers should re-asses “just-in-time” delivery schemes
and review all disposables to assure supplies will be available.
This should include contacting critical vendors to determine their
plans.
Dr. Louis Katz is chair of the AABB Interorganizational Task
Force on Pandemic Influenza and the Blood Supply. Dr. Katz said
that the AABB website will be updated soon to include pandemic flu
information. In addition, he said the Health and Human Services
website, www.PandemicFlu.gov
is an excellent resource for planning.
IDM preparedness
IDM is doing everything it can to be prepared to accommodate
both its employees and its customers.
Planning is based on the company’s disaster recovery plan,
which focuses on assuring uninterrupted technical support for
customers. The disaster plan offers solutions to a wide range of
events, depending on the effect on IDM office access, equipment
and communications.
The plan for avian flu entails having most, if not all support
staff work at home, so that they would be somewhat isolated and
their risk of contracting or spreading the virus would be
minimized. The office structure and equipment would be available
for their remote access, just as it is currently during off hours
support.
To insure adequate availability of equipment, we have recently
provided laptop PC’s for all support staff. All have secure
high-speed Internet connections that will allow them to access
IDM’s systems remotely, and therefore access customer’s sites
through our normal secure methods.
To further assure adequate availability of resources, the
technical marketing staff will serve as backups. They too have
been provided with laptop PC’s and are fully trained on support
standard operating policies and procedures.
In addition, we have modified our human resources policy to
allow accumulated sick leave to be converted to sick family leave
in the case of a national disaster.
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Bandwidth Management, Network Performance Trickle
Down to Efficient Donor Room Operations
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Anyone who has worked with a computer knows the frustration of
waiting for a program to load or open a file. Added up, that
downtime can translate into lost productivity, which affects a
company’s bottom line.
As blood centers are increasingly looking for ways to make
collecting donations and processing results more efficient,
software and automation are more and more frequently
becoming the solution. But software is only as
efficient as the network it runs on, and that efficiency is
measured in bandwidth.
Bandwidth and business applications
Bandwith, also known as a computer network's data transfer
rate, quantifies the amount of data that can be carried from one
point to another in a given time period. This metric is
usually expressed in bits, bytes or megabits per second, according
to
SearchNetworking.com, a networking-specific information
resource for IT professionals.
In today’s business environment, network bandwidth must be able
to bear the demands of collaboration tools such as instant
messengers, e-mail, internal applications, third-party software
solutions, Voice over IP telephony and video streaming.
Additionally, many companies today now support a distributed
workforce with workers accessing company systems from a home
office.
When analyzing bandwidth, factors to take into account include:
application demand, number of concurrent users, competing
applications and bandwidth availability.
Strategies and techniques for managing bandwidth are varied.
Not only does bandwidth need to be efficient, but it needs
sufficient quantity to allow for acceptable access times for
resources over the network.
The chart below compares the time to download a fairly large
file over various bandwidth speeds.
Chart compiled
from the following sources:
http://www.missico.com/personal/support/download_times.htm &
http://www.infosystems.eku.edu/LOY/cis300/bandwidth.html
Slow response times will typically limit dial-up modem
connections to non-graphical-interface-based applications and
emergency backups. Even though LAN connections are ideal, they are
only practical within a facility, not between facilities. T-1
connections are acceptable for most business applications.
Solutions for the donor room
The demands on bandwidth were one of the factors taken into
account when IDM developed its donor room management application,
Prelude.
Because Prelude is graphical in nature and utilizes audio and
digitized signature files, the software uses a few techniques to
reduce bandwidth usage, such as client caching and file
compression.
For instance, while the Prelude application remains open,
health history graphic and audio files are sent across the network
only one time and temporarily stored locally, reducing the ongoing
bandwidth demand. Additionally, the digitized donor signature that
is captured through the signature tablets is compressed to reduce
its size.
Demand for bandwidth will continue to grow over time, and IDM
will work with its customers to help optimize their network for
IDM’s applications, as well as future demand.
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New Product Focuses on Managing Customer
Relationships
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 Overture,
a new product in development by IDM, is a new take on an old
mandate for information systems: know thy customer.
Customer Relationship Management, aka CRM, has historically
been the purview of the accounts receivable department, where
receiving proper payment from customers was the only first-order
concern.
But times have changed. Today, CRM is expected to provide a
competitive advantage by elevating an organization’s level of
customer service. A CRM system enhances the value
of the organization’s primary products and
services, which can help it retain customers and attract new ones.
CRM is a business term that seems to have no universal
definition. A survey of several definitions reveals the following
common traits:
Completeness: Provide a comprehensive customer
information repository by managing the identities, demographics
and preferences of customer persons, organizations and their
affiliations; maintaining a log of interactions between a customer
and the user organization, or the system; and recording business
transactions with the customer.
Collaboration: Support customer service modes spanning
individuals and departments within the user organization.
Participation: Provide direct customer self-service
through customer-facing applications.
Analysis: Perform studies of aggregate customer data to
inform future business decisions.
So how can this concept of managing customer relationships be
applied to blood centers, since blood center operations don’t fit
the classic business model that is the driving force behind CRM?
IDM is in the development phase of Overture, a CRM-like product
that will assist a blood center with its unique donor/customer
relationships. Overture evolves the concepts of CRM into Donor
Relationship Management for the blood center environment.
In Donor Relationship Management:
• The “customer” translates to blood donors and the
organizations that sponsor blood drives.
• The demographics, preferences and affiliations help focus
donor recruitment activities.
• The primary interactions managed are telephone, email and
postal communications from the blood center to donors and
sponsors, for recruitment and recognition.
• The key transactions are donation appointments, and the
donation events themselves.
• Donors use a donor web portal for self-registration,
self-appointments, and history and recognition inquiry.
• Sponsors use a sponsor web portal for blood-drive task
management, and history and recognition inquiry.
If you would like to discuss this new product please contact
Sue McBride, IDM Vice President Business Development,
slm@idm.com.
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2006 IDM Users Conference
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Fifty-six people attended the annual IDM Users Conference Aug.
28 – 29 in Rosemont, Ill, making it the largest attended to date.
Because IDM’s customer base has grown significantly over the
past few years, a third day was added to the schedule, giving
users of IDM software an extended platform for discussion and
exchanging ideas. Here’s what participants had
to say about the conference:
“It is evident that significant amount of planning went into
this conference as I found it very organized and enjoyable.”
Diane King-Mitchell, American Red Cross - NTL Detroit
“The open forum aspects in all of the
sessions was beneficial. I like the way IDM listens to their
customers.” Kim Palmer,
Canadian Blood Services
"The format of the conference is good. The
audience participation seems to bring out useful information.”
Peter Fitzgerald, ZLB Plasma Services
“The topic that was most beneficial was what products are in
the pipeline. It gives us a heads-up to adjust plans.” Trey
Warry, Blood Center of New Jersey
On Monday, general session topics were presented that were of
interest to all attendees. IDM company update, industry news and
general technical topics are examples of topics that were
discussed.
On Tuesday, attendees broke out into two IDM product groups:
Surround and Prelude. These sessions featured product updates,
changes and user topics of interest.
For its new Prelude customers, IDM extended the conference an
extra day and organized a Prelude Implementation Workshop
round-table discussion that was held Wednesday, Aug. 30. Bill
Mallian, IDM Symphony Suite launch manager, facilitated this open
discussion, which focused on workflow planning related to the
implementation of Prelude.
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