In Sweden When You Save A Life, You Get A Text

Most people donate blood for altruistic reasons which is basically to save a life. By ensuring that blood banks are always stocked with all sorts of blood types, hospitals will be able to save the lives of patients who desperately need a blood transfusion. Now as it turns out while blood donation has risen by 25% in high-income countries, trying to recruit new donors can be difficult.

What Sweden has done is that they’re trying to get people to donate more blood through a motivation system. Basically the idea is that when you donate blood and it is used to save a life, you will get a text message informing you that your blood has been used for a noble purpose. Speaking to The Independent, Karolina Blom Wiberg who is the communications manager at  Stockholm’s blood service has confirmed that the system is rather effective.

According to Blom Wiberg, “It’s a great feeling to know you made such a big difference and maybe even saved someone else’s life. We get a lot of visiblity [sic] in social media and traditional media thanks to the SMS. But above all we believe it makes our donors come back to us, and donate again.”

This isn’t the first time that text messages have been used effectively for medical/health purposes. Previously we have seen that text messages have helped with people trying to lose weight, and have also been used by doctor to remind patients to take their medication.

[Image credit – Robert Lenne]

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Medical
Tags: Health, texting