IDM welcomes Blood Systems, Inc., Dayton
Community Blood Center, The Blood Connection, Inc., Lifeshare, Inc., and Blood Center of the Ozarks as
new customers of Prelude. Customers share their
comments about their selection.
“Of the systems we reviewed, Prelude met our
requirements and was already submitted to the FDA
for 510K clearance. The combination of these two
items will allow us to start using the system sooner
than others evaluated,” said Dennis Harpool, Vice
President Procedures Development and Training of
Blood Systems, Inc.
“Our center wanted a product that would be fully
integrated with our current donor system,” said Don
Thomson, Chief Operating Officer of Blood Center of
the Ozarks. “IDM has provided our center with great
customer service over the years.”
“We believe IDM is a company that is forward
thinking, looking at the future of what centers and
donors need,” said Jodi Minneman, Chief Operating
Officer of Community Blood Center, Dayton,
Ohio. “We saw this as a first step to IDM’s new suite
of products and a way for us to be positioned as a
blood center of the future.”
“Prelude
will truly revolutionize our collection process,” said Brian Madden,
Vice President of Operations of The Blood Connection. “Our staff
could not say enough about the level of professionalism and customer
service delivered by this company.”
IDM looks forward to its new partnerships and
believes they will pave the way for using cutting-
edge technology to positively impact the donor room
registration process.
Press release...
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Welcome to IDM Accent, a new quarterly newsletter
aimed at sharing pertinent blood banking industry
information, as well as updating IDM customers on
current events and products.
This first edition of IDM Accent looks at how
computerized self-administered donor interviews can
improve the donation process, and how donor
identity
information and other data on PCs can be protected
from theft or misuse through the use of data
encryption. In this edition we also look back at our
annual users conference, held in September,
welcome new customers of our Prelude system, and
more.
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Benefits of the Self-Administered Donor Interview |
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Donor satisfaction, improved accuracy, and a more
efficient and cost effective record-management
system are just a few of the reasons driving blood
centers around the world to consider purchasing
computerized self-administered donor interview
systems.
Jodi Minneman, Chief Operating Officer of Community
Blood Center, Dayton, Ohio, said about the benefits
of a computerized self-administered donor
interview, “It creates a more pleasant experience for
our donors and gives them more privacy in answering
questions.” She added, “It streamlines the process
and allows us to become more efficient, because we
are not having to spend time interviewing the donor.”
A computerized self-administered donor interview
system uses visual and audio prompts on a workstation to ask the donor a
series of health history questions. The donor responds to the questions
by entering the answers via the keyboard or touch screen capabilities.
The system records the answers and attaches the information to the donor
identity record.
As it relates
to donor satisfaction, a self-administered process provides the donor
privacy to respond at a personalized pace, increasing the chances that
the donor will return to donate again. “It puts the donor in charge of
their own interview process. We believe the process will reduce waiting
time and ultimately result in a more satisfying donation experience,”
said Dennis Harpool, Vice President Procedures and Training of Blood
Systems Inc.
Also, using a
computerized questionnaire easily allows the questionnaire to be
presented in multiple languages, assisting centers to reach out to
non-English speaking donor populations.
From an
accuracy standpoint, the computerized self-administered donor interview
eliminates the chance for transcription errors as well as omissions of
essential data. There is no transcribing of information from a document
into the donor management system. The donors’ answers are reviewed
online and stored with their records.
“Many studies
have been conducted supporting the finding that a computerized method is
able to reduce psychological barriers linked to the collection of
sensitive health-related information, thereby increasing its
reliability,” according to an abstract published by Simoes AM, Bastos FI,
at the National Library of Medicine. One of those studies,
conducted at the Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS), found that a
self-administered computerized questionnaire may increase reporting of
high-risk activities by blood donors. To read more about the CRCS study
visit BioMed Central.
Lastly, a
significant productivity improvement can be made in the amount of time
that is spent in record management and retention. Imagine a paperless
process that eliminates the need to review, collate, copy and archive
the donor health history form. “Anytime you can reduce paper it is a
plus,” said Harpool.
The benefits of
a computerized self-administered questionnaire are clear and that is why
more and more blood centers are choosing to automate this process. IDM
has responded to this trend by including a fully automated,
comprehensive, self-administered donor history questionnaire in Prelude,
IDM’s donor room management system.
The FDA has also
responded to this interest and has established a guideline for
self-administered questionnaires titled “Streamlining the Donor
Interview Process: Recommendations for Self-Administered
Questionnaires.” If your center is considering implementing a
computerized questionnaire, the guidelines as it pertains to
Computer-Assisted Interactive Procedures can be found at
www.fda.gov.donorsaq.htm.
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Is Your Centers Donor Data Safe? Data Encryption |
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The need for data encryption has grown significantly
during the past two years as state and federal
privacy laws take effect and enterprises take
stronger measures to protect their data following
database intrusions across the globe.
Many blood centers are downloading donor
information onto portable PCs to execute some sort
of donor lookup and/or registration at a donation
site. Is the data on these PCs safe?
There have been cases where the actual portable
PC containing critical donor identity data was either stolen or lost,
according to a FBI May 2005 report, titled "U.S. Blood Banks: Targets
for Identity Theft".
One way to protect sensitive donor information in this type of situation
is to use data encryption.
How does
encryption work? In this particular scenario, the entire disk of a
portable PC containing donor data is encrypted. Access to decrypt the
data is strictly password protected. Therefore, the extraction of donor
identity information from a lost or stolen PC is prohibited.
IDM researched
third party encryption tools and selected SafeGuard Easy by Utimaco to
incorporate into Prelude, a recently released product designed for donor
registration. SafeGuard Easy was selected because of its
effectiveness, ease of use, and performance.
SafeGuard Easy is
seamless to the end user by managing the entire encryption process
without user intervention. SafeGuard Easy supports the sophisticated
and efficient encryption algorithms: AES(256 and 128 bit), IDEA(128) and
others.
Advanced
Encryption Standard,
AES was adapted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
in November 2001.
AES has a fixed block
size of 128 bits and a key size of 128, 192, or 256 bits. The greater
the bit size specified, the more difficult it is to break the encryption
algorithm and therefore the more secure your data is.
Data security is a
concern at the forefront of many blood centers and data encryption is
yet another valuable tool to utilize to ensure the safety of donor data.
To read more about
data encryption technology visit
www.utimaco.us\encryption\aes.html.
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FDA Accepts Digitized Signatures |
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has notified
IDM that digitized signatures can be accepted as
part of a paperless donation record system as long
as the system meets guidelines set forth by the Code
of Federal Regulations, 21CFR Part 11, relating to
handwritten signatures and electronic records.
Most people encounter digitized signatures when
they use their credit cards in major stores and sign
their name or legal mark to an electronic pad instead
of a piece of paper. This signature is considered an
electronic record of a signature and must be linked to
the customer’s respective electronic records. These
records must reside on a closed system to ensure
the signatures cannot be copied or tampered with.
Utilizing digitized signatures allows a center to
have a paperless donation record system. “A paperless system reduces
omission errors, and gains efficiencies as it relates to paper storage
and record retention and retrieval,” said Dennis Harpool, Vice President
Procedures Development and Training of Blood Systems Inc.
IDM has incorporated a digitized signature system into Prelude, its
recently released donor room management system, for use on blood
donation records.
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2005 IDM User Conference |
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Representatives of more than 25 blood organizations
worldwide converged on Chicago in September for
IDM’s 11th annual Users Conference.
Users of IDM’s Surround laboratory system and
Select Series donor/product management systems
had the opportunity to gain a better understand of
IDM’s philosophies and product direction, and to learn
how they can maximize the benefits of IDM’s
products and services.
A feature of the conference that many users found refreshing was the
open discussion for customers to communicate their concerns and requests
and for IDM to respond to them.
IDM updates
Many topics were presented and discussed
including; IDM’s Disaster Plan, Development Process and Customer Support
Call data. The attendees got a better understanding and appreciation of
the experience and expertise required to deliver and support a FDA
regulated software product for the Blood Banking industry.
Lab System Updates
An update of the current laboratory
system, Surround, was given. IDM has released two new revisions of
Surround this year with many requested changes including the interface
to Immucor’s Galileo, automated shipping and tracking of sample tubes to
the test site, and capabilities to streamline CMV and first time ABO/Rh
testing. IDM also announced its plans to release an exciting new
revision of Surround in 2006, highlights to include the elimination of
the
SCO server, transferring only new test results to the host
system, allowing data archiving of batch and sample results to a
separate database partition, and an upgrade to the Oracle Database
revision.
Donor System
Updates
The Select Series Users Conference
included a presentation of IDM’s new innovative suite of products,
called IDM Symphony. A complete description of IDM Symphony can be
found at
www.idm.com. Further discussions included regulatory affairs and
customer services. Open discussion was also conducted to gather
information for future revisions of IDM products. Once again, the
customers provided valuable information as well as an opportunity for
IDM to address their needs.
Networking and
Socialization
The conference wasn’t all business. IDM
hosted a night out on a cruise ship on Lake Michigan. A good time was
had by all while enjoying the Chicago skyline. “The night out was
absolutely wonderful and the view was breathtaking. Everybody had a
great time and it was a good opportunity to meet other users of Surround
and the IDM staff,” said Irma Villarreal, Technical Services
Administrator of South Texas Blood and Tissue Center.
Future Users
Conferences
The Users Conference is an annual IDM
event, held every year in IDM’s hometown of Rosemont, Ill., conveniently
located next to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Look for
information on IDM’s next conference in the Spring edition of the
newsletter.
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IDM Surround User Advisory Committee Meeting - February 2006 |
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In an effort to be proactive addressing user needs
and industry trends IDM moderates a quarterly
conference call with current Surround users.
Topics are gathered through customer requests and approved by the
Surround User Chairperson, Sharon Gordon, Executive Director Testing
Laboratories of LifeSource Blood Services. Recent topics that have been
discussed were instrument interfaces including the Ortho Tango and Bac-T
Alert, update on the Abbott Prism, eliminating the
SCO
server and more.
The attendees of the meetings are Sharon Gordon; Steve Slaw, IDM Account
Manager; Kyle Kruska, Surround Development Manager; and 12 users of IDM
Surround. IDM invites any interested user to join the committee. If
you would like to join, please contact Steve Slaw at
sas@idm.com.
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