The medical and health department in Telangana is planning to launch a mobile application to record the details of blood donors in the state. The idea of launching a mobile app is regarded as a part healthcare policy decision of the government with regard to blood donations and blood storage in the state.

Once the new mobile app comes into force, it will not just record the details of blood donors, but also help the donors to easily obtain blood from the blood banks whenever they are in need of blood for him/her or their family members and friends. “As part of government’s initiative to improve the blood donation policy in the state we have embarked on this new idea of launching a mobile app for the blood donors. This will be very much helpful for the donors as well as the patients. It is like depositing cash into one’s own accounts in a bank and withdraw the same whenever he wants,” said Poonam Malkondaiah, medical and health principal secretary, government of Telangana.

According to sources in the health department, the main aim of this mobile app is to ensure transparency and accountability among blood banks in the state and avoid any kind of miss management or adulteration of blood as seen in the recent instance by a technician at Koti government maternity hospital blood bank in Hyderabad. “We are planning to launch a mobile app which will help record the details of the donors and enable the hospitals to get easy access to donors of a particular group during emergencies. At the same time this kind of app will also help enable transparency and accountability among the blood banks and avoid any kind of mismanagement,” informed a senior officer in the health department.

The health department authorities are also planning to link this new initiative to a high end mobile ambulance, which will be launched soon with a focus to encourage young people to donate blood and make them part of saving lives of thousands of people in the state. For this the government has approved to provide one high-end mobile ambulance costing about Rs. 40 lakh to each district in the state. This apart the state government is also planning to increase the number of blood banks to 68 by adding 33 more blood banks under National Health Mission.