There is a strong need for actions to supply the blood demand in the World. Based on this fact, it was designed an application, named `Blood Hero', by applying the `gamification' concept, which allows users to be rewarded by social acts related to the blood donation. It takes advantage of the application of mobile devices, implementing a specific social network, to attract and retain blood donators. This application makes possible an interaction between users and blood centers, and is being tested aiming at evaluating its acceptance and impact in bloodstocks.
The lack of blood in hemocenters is an intermittent problem in the Brazilian health system; due to the difficulty of attracting blood donors, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), each country must maintain 3-5% of its population as regular blood donors. However, the number of regular donors in Brazil, in recent years, has not reached 3% of the population. In order to attract periodic volunteer blood donors, the objective of this study was to develop a mobile application, called BloodHero, to work as a social network, with a game methodology, known as gamification, to encourage blood donation. Initiatives and interactions favorable to blood donation, within the application, will generate points that will be used for in-game competitiveness. Another contribution given to those that use this software is the interaction between users who can donate blood and patient users, where these second ones can share their stories or use this software as a tool to find someone compatible with their blood type for donation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.