matthew geary
global blood donation innovation
background
While most of us are familiar with gravity-driven whole blood donation, there exists a more advanced blood collection technique called apheresis. In apheresis, blood is collected from the donor and separated into parts using a centrifuge. The desired blood components are stored in bags and the remaining volume is returned to the donor.
methods
ethnography
contextual inquiry
in depth interviews
experience design
design strategy
role
research co-lead at InsightPD
challenge
Our client is a world leader in blood collection products. They operate in a "razor and blade" business model and recently noticed a decrease in sales of disposable products. This suggested that although donation centers had acquired the expensive hardware, they were actively choosing to use the competitor systems. Our goal was to understand the blood collection experience and identify opportunities for a next generation product to improve the experience for donors and clinicians, while improving business operations for the donation centers.
process
Stakeholder Interviews and Onboarding
In advance of research, our research team met on-site at the client's headquarters for a full day onboarding to understand current market dynamics, competitor products and positioning, and areas of strength and weakness for the company. While there, we interviewed key stakeholders in the project to clarify their key questions and define what success looked like from their perspective.
Global Ethnography and 1:1 Interviews
Ethnography allowed our team to observe the intricacies of the blood donation process first hand. Since donation practices and attitudes vary dramatically around the globe, our research team visited 26 sites in 13 countries. At each site, staff members gave a "think aloud" tour of the center as we followed donors as they moved from registration, through the donation process, and where the blood products went as they entered storage or left the facility. As the tour concluded, the team conducted small group interviews with donation center staff, clinicians, and purchase decision makers
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Members of the client's team accompanied the research team on all research visits, helping to drive buy-in throughout the process and allowing the client to build relationships with key customers.
results
Research efforts identified several opportunities for the client to better match their offerings to the demands of both the clinicians and donors.
We noticed in several regions that providers were under-utilizing the client's more advanced apheresis offering, which made their offering appear overly expensive. Despite being an important public service, blood banks must still run as a business -- matching demand with supply in a cost effective way. Apheresis had also be positioned as a "safer" alternative to acquiring blood products, but discussions showed that most clinicians didn't share that view. As a result, we showed that many of the extra safety measures didn’t add the value previously thought. By stripping down the features in their disposable, the client could provide a more appealing, lower cost product that used the facilities’ existing equipment.
In the blood banks, we identified several ways to improve the donor experience for apheresis, leading to move donors opting for that over traditional gravity draws. Shortening collection times and reducing total time in facility makes apheresis more appealing to a broader population of donors. More donors on apheresis reduces the forecasting sensitivity for key products and increases the utilization of our clients devices.