Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s largest state-run blood bank attached to the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital has gone digital. Barcode attached forms and test results have been introduced to assist with the identification of donors with infectious diseases.

The new procedure is going to ensure that people with infectious diseases, such as HIV, AIDS or hepatitis, including those who have refused treatment, are prevented from donating blood at any state-run blood bank.

Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society went on to pilot the project following an incident wherein a pregnant woman in Sattur was tested positive for HIV after being transfused with infected blood, which was cleared as safe by a blood bank.

State AIDS Control Society Officer and Blood Safety Commissioner, Dr Senthil Raj, mentioned that this bank collects 35,000 units of blood each year. It has thrice the capacity of their second largest bank in Madurai. Therefore, this bank was considered as the best place to pilot the three-month study.

The digitization was influenced by software used by the Christian Medical College, Vellore, which linked donor’s blood bag, test samples and results with a barcode. Officials modified the software according to the state’s requirement.

Under this new protocol, volunteers offering to donate blood will be required to provide details such as name, date of birth, father’s name, address and contact number. Blood bank officials would also encourage donors to provide Aadhar card details. The details will be stored on a computer and a barcode would be generated. One copy of the barcode would be stuck on the form, another on the blood bag and the third on the sample that would be sent for tests. The results uploaded by the bank will be linked to patient’s dashboard on the computer. The blood bank managers will thus have the donor details and results on the same page.

Plans to use fingerprints, iris scan and other bio-identification methods were dropped. A senior blood bank official said that it was decided to keep it simple. Four barcode readers, four systems and a local server will be used. (TNN)