CHAPTER ONE

1.0       INTRODUCTION

A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation (separation of wholeblood components). Donation may be of whole blood (WB), or of specific components directly (the latter called apheresis). Blood banks often participate in the collection process as well as the procedures that follow it.

Today in the developed world, most blood donors are unpaid volunteers who donate blood for a community supply. In developing nations, established supplies are limited and donors usually give blood when family or friends need a transfusion (directed donation). Many donors donate as an act of charity, but in countries that allow paid donation some donors are paid, and in some cases there are incentives other than money such as paid time offfrom work. Donors can also have blood drawn for their own future use (autologous donation). (www.medicalsoftwaredevelopment.com)

Potential donors are evaluated for anything that might make their blood unsafe to use. The screening includes testing for diseases that can be transmitted by a blood transfusion, including HIV and viral hepatitis. The donor must also answer questions about medical history and take a shortphysical examination to make sure the donation is not hazardous to his or her health. How often a donor can donate varies from days to months based on what component they donate and the laws of the country where the donation takes place. For example, in the United States, donors must wait for eight weeks (56 days) between whole blood donations but only seven days between plateletpheresis donations and twice per seven-day period plasmapheresis. (www.bloodtransfussion.com).

The amount of blood drawn and the methods vary. The collection can be done manually or with automated equipment that takes only specific components of the blood. Most of the components of blood used for transfusions have a short shelf life, and maintaining a constant supply is a persistent problem. This has led to some increased interest in autotransfusion, whereby a patient's blood is salvaged during surgery for continuous reinfusion — or alternatively, is "self-donated" prior to when it will be needed. (Generally, the notion of "donation" does not refer to giving to one's self, though in this context it has become somewhat acceptable idiomatic.) (www.bloodtransfussion.com).

1.0.1    HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF UNILORIN

UNILORIN was established by a decree of the Federal Military Government in 1975 and is a federal government owned tertiary institution of education located in Ilorin, Kwara State, western Nigeria. The ancient city of Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, is about 300 km from Lagos and 500 km from Abuja, the country's administrative capital. In August 2014, the school was ranked as the best university in Nigeria.

The university began as a University College affiliated to the oldest university in Nigeria in 1975 under the leadership of the then principal, Dr. T.N. Tamuno. The first set of 200 students, selected following an entrance examination, were admitted into a residence on 23 October 1976, while academic work started on 25 October after the Principal’s address. The University College started with three academic faculties of Arts, Science and Education.

In October 1977, the institution attained full autonomous status with the appointment of the then Principal, Professor O.O Akinkugbe as first vice chancellor. The immediate past vice chancellor, Professor [Is-haq Oloyede] is the first Unilorin alumnus to occupy that position. The staff and student populations now stand at 3,040 and 20,084 respectively.

The University started off on a portion of the temporary campus of the Kwara State Polytechnic known as the mini campus. This was the site of academic programmes in the Faculties of Arts, Science, Education, Engineering & Technology, Business and Social Sciences, and basic clinical sciences of the Health Sciences Faculty. It was the only campus of the university until January 1982 when more than 1000 students studying science were moved following completion of new Faculty blocks and residences for Natural Sciences and Engineering on the permanent campus site. From 1983, the law programme was started as a department in the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences. Following a 6-year hiatus, it was re-established in 1993 as a full-fledged Faculty. The university now has 15 faculties: Arts, Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Management Sciences, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Communication and Information Sciences, Education, Engineering and Technology, Pharmaceutical Science, Veterinary Medicine, and Law; a College of Health Sciences (with 2 Faculties-Basic Medical and Clinical Sciences); two institutes (Institute of Education and Unilorin Sugar Research Institute); and the Postgraduate School. These faculties have over 60 academic departments. Undergraduate degree programmes are run for 3-5, or 6 years, depending on entry qualifications and discipline.

The University of Ilorin is located in the ancient city of Ilorin, about 500 kilometers from Abuja, the Federal capital. Ilorin, the Capital of Kwara State, is strategically located at the geographical and cultural confluence of the North and South with a land mass of 75,000 (approximate) hectare.

The university of Ilorin was one of the seven institutions of higher learning established by a decree of the Federal Military Government in August 1975. This step, taken to implement one of the educational directives of the country’s Third National Development Plan, was aimed at providing more opportunities for Nigerians aspiring to acquire university education and to generate high-levelmanpower, so vital for the rapidly expanding economy.

The University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) belongs to the second generation of Teaching Hospitals which were established by law on the 2nd May 1980. It took off in July1980 and started operation using as its temporary site, the then General Hospital and Maternity Hospital Ilorin which were owned by the Kwara State Government. The permanent site of the hospital was declared opened by His Excellency, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in May 2007 while complete movement took place in April 2010.

1.1              BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Blood Donor Recruitment (BDR) is the process of drawing blood from a voluntary Blood Donor (BD) for future blood transfusion. In University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), blood collection, safety, and management are an activity that is carried out by Kwara State Blood Transfusion (KSBT).

KSRCS is part of the Worldwide Red Cross Humanitarian movement whose mission is to mobilize the power of humanity for improving the lives of the vulnerable in Nigeria. Kwara State Red Cross Society (KSRCS) fulfills this mission while adhering to the principles of impartiality, neutrality, independence, unity universality and voluntary service for the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement.

It operates throughout Nigeria with a branch in each state.  Besides providing an adequate supply of blood for transfusion, KSRCS is involved in the first and services, road safety, tracing disaster mitigation/preparedness, mobilization for routine immunization, HIV home care, youth empowerment and Community Based Health Care (CBHC).

KSRCS has a manual system using the paper card to recruit Blood Donors (BDS) collect/ keep blood donor records and dissemination results to BDS who are scattered throughout the country. The Paper Card System (PCS) used to specifically capture personal data and medical history of the BDs. This information would be used in identifying and locating existing. BDS, carrying out pre-donation counseling and taking blood results. Unauthorized persons, however, easily accessed the paper system and hence making it impossible to keep secrecy and confidentiality expected of medical records. The security of medical records was also not inadequate as any person could easily access them. The head of blood donor department of UITH Ilorin states that such a system is time-consuming, prone to error of entry and analysis resulting from the fatigue of the users. The PCS at Kwara State Red Cross Society had lead to accumulation of physical paper cards due to an increasing number of blood donors, a situation that frustrated the system users because of the delays and at times failure to access historical record.

The safe blood policy was lacking at KSRCS because the Paper Card System (PCS) could not cater for the key attributes of the policy. Gerard (2000) states that the main principles upon which the safe blood policy is based on are the informed consent, confidentiality, and secrecy of the blood donors.

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society Publication Development in 1990 states that information from blood donors should be completely confidential and if this is not assured, names of the blood donors should not be recorded at all and or an alternative record identification should be used.

Full implementation of the safe blood policy has called the use of Information Technology (IT) in providing a working solution to the identified challenges. The associated problems with PCS include delays in accessing historical records, inconsistencies and errors in data entry that stem right for the acquisition of data from the blood donors because the exercise is of routine nature and very tedious to the system using modern IT has improved the quality of services. Secondly, with the use of IT, now relevant and timely blood donor report can easily be generated and hence facilitating planning and decision making.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The BDR management system at KSRCS exhibited a lot of ineffectiveness and inefficiency that had afar-fetched impact on the decision taken by management. The system, which was manual that is based on Paper Card to collect blood donor data, keep records of blood donor and transfusion result to BDs had a weakness that needed IT based solution. The system characterized by delays and sometimes failure to access historical records, errors witnessed in entry and manual analysis of results, secrecy, and confidentiality of records lacked because an unauthorized person could easily access the records. Therefore, management decision such as blood distribution to hospitals, mobilization sensitization of blood donors were taking base on real facts, under such a system, another challenge to management was quick generation of report pertaining to blood groups for the big number of blood donors in place, indeed the application of IT-based on solution in improving the system was envisaged. Therefore, the existing system was reviewed and an effective and robust blood donor management information system designed to assist management in implementing its strategic plan in order to achieve the overall mission, goals.

Douglas (2003) states that the traditional method of medical data management has resulted in incomplete and inaccurate data in many cases.

Incompleteness has resulted from a lack of printed forms, the unwillingness of staff to complete forms and sometimes loss of completed forms to data entry. The scenario explains by Douglas is no doubt far from the PCS that was at KSRCS, a situation that rendered decision making by management challenging and hence justified for the research of this project.

1.3       AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study is to create blood donor management software package system in order to assist in the management of blood donor records, planning and share information in themore confidential, convenient and secures way of using modern technology. The objectives are to:

a.       Efficiently recruit and manage Blood Donors, the Donor features allows the hospital staff to efficiently recruit Donor and tract their appointments for blood collection. In addition the organization can maintain a current donor Database to track blood donor information.

b.      To enable faster and more efficient storage, retrieval and updating of blood bank records.

c.       To develop blood bank requisition through registration and issuance of blood.

1.4       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will help to address the problem of security, secrecy, and confidentiality of blood donor records. It also strives to tackle the delays, errors, inconsistencies in medical records and timely access to historical records all of which had a farfetched impact on planning and decision making. The study will be beneficial to Kwara State Red Cross Society (KSRCS) and blood donors.

1.5       SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The project focuses on registration and management which comprise of donor details and particular, blood group. Blood disorder and blood type, antigen profile, most recent donation date and comment, blood transfusion; management; donor management (donor personal details and particular, past history of blood transfusion and test results). Blood components to prepared and blood collection details and clinical management. This research work does not cover blood inventory management (whole blood, a component of blood, fractionation products, compactable blood type searches, bar coding capabilities, inventory control, automatic cancellation of product orders and reserve units for discharge patient) and blood component production management.

1.6       RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1.6.1    METHODOLOGY

1.6.1.1 INTERVIEWS

The research opted this type of fact-finding techniques because at first, the people in the blood bank section were not cooperative since blood donation involves knowing people HIV status and those people are compelled to keep confidentiality. Because of those problems, the need information could not be got from other methods of fact-finding techniques as the research had to first build confidence in the respondents and assuring them that the research was purely academic. Those interviewed were the managers, blood bank staff and some few donors.

The researcher also read the available literature in form of report and brochures; however, little information was available as regards to information processing. Most of the available literature was purely demographic.

1.6.2    DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

System software, or systems software, is computer software designed to provide services to other software.Examples of system software include operating systems, computational science software, game engines, industrial automation, and software as a service applications.

In contrast to system software, software that allows users to do things like creating text documents, play games, listen to music, or web browsers to surf the web are called application software.

The line where the distinction should be drawn is not always clear. Many operating systems bundle application software. Such software is not considered system software when it can be uninstalled usually without affecting the functioning of other software. Exceptions could be e.g. web browsers such as Internet Explorer where Microsoft argued in court that it was system software that could not be uninstalled. Later examples are Chrome OS and Firefox OS where the browser functions as the only user interface and the only way to run programs (and another web browser cannot be installed in their place), then they can well be argued to be (part of) the operating system and then system software.

Another borderline example is cloud based software. This software provides services to a software client (usually a web browser or a JavaScript application running in the web browser, PHP, CSS, and MYSQL), not to the user directly, and is, therefore, systems software. It is also developed using system programming methodologies and systems programming languages. Yet from the perspective of functionality there is little difference between a word processing application and word processing web application.

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