Encouraging Blood Donation in Patients With a Blood Type in Short Supply

As of November 2021, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a months-long national shortage of several types of blood in the U.S. (O-Pos, O-Neg, A-Neg, B-Neg, and AB-Neg), which has extended to a local blood shortage within the Geisinger community. The broad aim of this collaborative healthcare operations quality improvement project is to determine whether a message indicating that a patient's own blood type is in short supply increases the likelihood that they will donate, compared to a message that mentions a blood shortage without referencing the patient's blood type, or no message at all. Scientists in Geisinger's Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), part of Geisinger's Steele Institute for Health Innovation, will collaborate with Miller Keystone, where Geisinger refers patients who wish to donate blood and from whom Geisinger receives blood for clinical purposes. Patients with one of the needed blood types will be randomized to receive 1) a message about a blood shortage that does not specify the blood types in short supply or their own blood type (no-blood-type message), 2) the same message modified slightly to specify the recipient's blood type, and to mention that their blood type is in short supply (blood-type message), or 3) no message (shortage control group). A second no-contact control group of patients without any of the needed blood types will also be observed (no-shortage control group). Both the blood-type and no-blood-type messages are informed by behavioral science, emphasizing supply needs in local hospitals and providing community-relevant examples of why someone might need blood (e.g., farming or industrial accidents). The BIT will compare how many patients in each group choose to donate blood. They hypothesize that: 1) patients who receive either message will be more likely to donate than patients who receive no message; and 2) patients who receive the blood-type message will be more likely to donate than those who receive the no-blood-type message. With respect to the latter hypothesis, informing the recipient that they have one of the needed blood types may increase their perception that they are in a semi-unique position to help someone in need as compared to a more general message that may suffer from a diffusion of responsibility effect.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Health Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Patient portal message; Behavioral: Social responsibility

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 59093
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Danville, Pennsylvania, United States, 17822
      • Geisinger

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Documented blood type in short supply (for message groups and shortage control group)
• Documented blood type not in short supply (for no-shortage control group)
• Age 18+

Exclusion Criteria:

• Hemoglobin test result < 12.5 within the 3 months prior to list creation

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: No-blood-type message; This group will receive a message that does not mention the patient's blood type, or that the patient's blood type is in short supply.	Behavioral: Patient portal message; Portal message encourages patients to donate blood
Experimental: Blood-type message; This group will receive a message that mentions the patient's blood type and that states their blood type is in short supply.	Behavioral: Patient portal message; Portal message encourages patients to donate blood; Behavioral: Social responsibility; Message specifies that there is a shortage of the patient's blood type
No Intervention: Shortage control; This group will not receive a message.
No Intervention: No-shortage control; This group will not receive a message.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of Participants Who Attended a Donation Appointment	Attended a donation appointment within 6 weeks of their message send date, regardless of whether they donated. This outcome includes patients who were unable to donate for any reason (e.g. low hemoglobin) or patients who showed up to the appointment but decided to leave before donating.	Within 6 weeks of the final message send date

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of Participants Who Successfully Donated Blood	Attended a donation appointment within 6 weeks of their message send date and successfully donated, excluding patients who were turned away from or left their appointment without donating.	Within 6 weeks of the final message send date
Number of Participants Who Scheduled a Blood Donation Appointment	Scheduled an appointment within 2 weeks of their message send date.	Within 2 weeks of the final message send date

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Geisinger Clinic

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 15, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 6, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): June 6, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 15, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 15, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): November 26, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 26, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 25, 2022
• Last Verified: July 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Behavior change; Nudge; Blood donations
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2021-0476

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Data with no personally identifiable information will be made available to other researchers on the Open Science Framework for transparency.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: The data will become available after publication of study results in a scientific journal and will be available as long as the Open Science Framework hosts the data.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: The data on the Open Science Framework will be open to anyone requesting that information.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No