Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

Designing an Information System Model for National Blood Bank of Sri

Lanka

SRCN Senanayake# and ADAI Gunesekara

Faculty of Computing, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka
#
[email protected]

Abstract— Life is a precious element from all the authorized firm for coordinating and administrating
belongings we have. Blood is an essential asset for donation of blood, blood stocks & stock movements. Yet,
survival from different circumstances. Therefore, blood management has been identified as a challenging
donation of blood is an essential criterion for the human task the existing manual system engages in certain
beings to save the lives of their beings. The National limitations. This paper is introduced an Management
Blood Bank of Sri Lanka is the only authorized institute Information System for the National Blood Bank of Sri
that maintains the donation of blood. The existing system Lanka to utilize the donation of blood. In doing so the
faces the challenge of dealing with management of introduction outline objectives, background and
donating blood as it is manual. Similar systems in the motivation for the research, problem in brief, proposed
global context have been developed as web based solution, resource requirements, overview of the
systems as well as android applications. In the local structure of the rest of the paper.
context, there is only one system that can be found which
will help to organize blood donation campaigns. This With the aim to design a MIS to the Blood Bank this
study is based on designing an Information System Model paper has identified the following key milestones.
for the National Blood Bank of Sri Lanka to utilize the  To critically study the current practices and issues in
donation of blood to minimize the existing barriers such blood donation management in Sri Lanka.
as limiting early reservations for donations, lack of  To critically study the existing computer based
centralized database to keep the donors' records, low solutions for blood donation management in local
security etc. The system will also facilitate organizing and world context.
blood donation campaigns all over the country with the  To provide online information flow for the
help of the National Blood Bank of Sri Lanka. An extended management of blood donors, patients and staff of
version of scientific method has been used as the research blood bank.
methodology and it has been accomplished by using  To provide a means for the hospital's blood
software requirements namely ASP.net and Microsoft SQL bank to publicize nationwide information about
Server database. Using the queries that have been the blood donation events to the public.
written, blood transfusion can be done effectively, as for  To provide authentic and authorized features to
the need and on time. The limitations of the manual current system where private and confidential data
system can be indicated through the observations of the can only be viewed by authorized user.
existing domain and providing a questionnaire to the staff  To facilitate users to organize blood donation
of blood bank. The system has been tested in the real campaigns with the aid of Blood Bank.
blood bank environment. Evaluation of the solution has  To provide synchronized and centralized donor and
been done with 30 participants from the Blood Bank and blood stock database to the blood bank.
the results show that 80% increase in the productivity in
Blood donation and transfusion service involves
six months.
management of donating blood, maintaining blood stocks
Keywords— Donor, Blood, National Blood Bank & stock movements for a successful blood transfusion on
time as per the requirement. Given the dangerous nature
I. INTRODUCTION of blood and blood components, it contains the difficult
The requirement for the blood is an important factor in controlling, monitoring and the complete documentation
contemporary medicine and healthcare. For every second of the whole procedure from blood collection to blood
there will have an individual who needs blood to save the transfusion and it will directly affect to donors, patients
life. National blood bank of Sri Lanka is the only as well as the staff of Blood Bank Sri Lanka.

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Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

Nevertheless, in face of the significant amount of data maintain the records of particular parties. Donor
and information in a daily interval, blood bank of Sri registration is accompanied by either in-house
Lanka currently encounters various errors certainly that registration which is done by in blood bank or branches
will lead to major risks in the mentioned process of blood of blood bank in hospitals or mobile registration which is
donation and transfusion service. Errors at the time of conducted as blood campaigns all over the country. In-
administration of blood or blood components are the house registration is handled by using bar-code system.
most frequent documented site of error in the Blood donating is a continuous activity and it is not
transfusion of the wrong blood. Furthermore, with the only performed when the blood is required for a
existing manual system there is no chance to facilitate particular patient. The person who is willing to donate
donors for early reservations for their easiness. Lack of blood must be fulfilled several specifications to be
centralized database to keep donors records and low qualified as a donor. If he or she is qualified he will be
security are also critical failures in the current procedure. registered as a donor by filling the details of unit no,
date, name & address, NIC, Telephone No, Sex, Blood
A. Proposed Solution-MIS for National Blood Bank group, no of donations and etc. Unit No is the blood
of Sri Lanka packet no and it is the no that can be identified the donor
Management Information System that will be the after the donation onwards.
solution for the above problem has been designed by
using ASP.net and Microsoft SQL database that will be run
on windows based operating system. The donor details
that are captured by the bar code system, donor details
blood stock details, donation campaign details are stored
in Microsoft SQL database. There will be a separate
system that will be developed by using php and MySQL
database as the client. With the aid of a web service that Post Details
will be forced on Service Oriented Architecture patient Find Donor
details in the client side have been matched with
particular donors who are compatible with the patient’s
blood group. This can be presented as a simple algorithm
and using the quires that have been written, blood Web
Application
transfusion can be done effectively, as for the need and
on time.

II. METHODOLOGY & EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Research methodology of this paper is an extended
method of scientific technology. Therefore, the
background theory is built up with observations, study, Blood
Meet Patient
problem definition, hypothesis, experimental design, Request
data gathering and analysis and finally conclusion.

According to the targeted domain, observations have

been done by vising the blood bank of Sri Lanka with
expectation of identifying real scenario. Here, an
interview had been conducted with the staff members of
blood bank which is situated in Narahenpita. The
procedure of the blood donation has been described as Figure 1. Scenario of the Proposed Solution
step by step. Source: Author
Donor registration, patient registration, blood stock
management and stock movements and issuing and Blood stocks are maintained as group wise, Rh, reserved
conducting donation campaigns are the main activities of or unreserved blood (daily or monthly) and discard date
the blood bank and currently there is a manual system to of blood. If the particular blood group is currently not

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 Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

available in the hospital blood bank it should be informed It is efficient for using a barcode system than entering
to the nearest cluster to that particular hospital. Stock donor details manually. It will be helpful for the donor as
movements are handled in a situation of unavailability of well to be identified as a donor. Electronic donor card is
rare blood groups. also benefited for the identification of a donor. But the
technology that is used is advanced for the proposed
National blood bank keeps no of registers for the purpose system
of maintaining records of requests, donors, cross match
2) Oracle-Based Database:
and etc. Mobile campaigns are conducted by several
In terms of data and information management, SIBAS
organizations with the permission of the blood bank.
provides the all-round Oracle-based database solution in
server end. The independent Oracle databases are
A. Literature behind the Analysis
configured, respectively, for the data and information of
Research accompanied on similar study areas are
blood donors, donation, blood laboratory testing, and
inspected in the hope of eliciting and analysing underling
blood producing and inventory management (Chao, Dong
research concepts behind those researches. Moreover,
and Li, 2008). In general, there is an optimized database
the study can be used to view the problem and proposed
for every division of CTS-Macau so that the efficiency of
solution in terms of a general and different perception so
data management and information accessing could be
that a quality solution can be stated.
substantially improved.

User role controlling has been handled by SIBAS using a

specific database for use role management and
controlling (Chao, Dong and Li, 2008). Before any
operation on real database of blood bank information,
the user has to pass through a series of independent
procedures of identification and verification. On the
other hand, the user’s any operation on blood bank
information will be recorded for backward inspection in
this database. Middleware is used to improve the
Figure 2. Workflow and infrastructure of a blood bank efficiency of data operation and information accessing;
information system SIBAS makes good use of the concept and method of
Source: Chao, Dong and Li, 2008 middleware, namely, packaging procedures, functions
and triggers in Oracle database for data operation. Then
1) Bar Code Reader & Electronic Donor Card Read/Write the client end just submits its request and receives the
Machine: desired results.
As mentioned by Chao, Dong and Li (2008), SIBAS- A
Blood Bank Information System and Its 5-year One advantage of using Oracle databases is due to
Implementation at Macau has been used peripheral Oracles belief in customer satisfaction. For example, all
devices and instruments such as barcode reader and Oracle databases are backward compatible. Another
printer to the purpose of printing donation number. important advantage offered by Oracle databases are
Every division of the blood bank is prepared with barcode their reliability. Oracle is a database that delivers
readers so that a series of complex processing could keep excellent performance when challenged with demanding
rigorous consistency. Electronic donor card read/write tasks. Oracle databases incorporate Flashback
machine is another technology that SIBAS used to technology, which is a significant advantage. In the event
provide the best service to blood donors. Electronic of an application outage, due to any number of reasons,
donor card may be the most welcomed one. It can not it is important not to lose data stored on a database
only store the donor’s basic data in magnetic bar but also system. Oracle's Flashback technology allows for efficient
print the fine picture about the donor’s donation recovery of data incorrectly deleted or lost. Thus,
information. The whole solution is based on the thermo Flashback technology essentially removes human error
rewritable card technology of Rewrite Card Technology and increases database recovery time. In the end, this
Inc. feature allows for a simplified management and
administrative process.

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Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

3) Android Technology: reservations or bookings on the session of blood

The Optimization of Blood Donor Information and donation. It is a very important facility for those who are
Management System by Technopedia proposed a web very busy and yet enthusiastic people to know and be
based application and android application so that the sure when they can make blood donation instead of
blood donors are available easily within the required time trying to work out where and when they can make blood
(Priyal, Saranya and Shabana, 2014). The donors who are donation when they are free. Lack of centralized
nearby location are tracked by the android application database that will used to keep the donors' records is
using GIS. The purpose of website is to update the also a major problem in this existing scenario. Each blood
relevant information regarding the donors who have bank is having their own records of donors. If a donor
already donated blood in various hospitals, therefore makes donation in different hospital, no previous
when it is needed for any others they can view other records can be traced except if the donor brings
donors where it can be accessed through this website. along the donation certificate. Hence, the donor is
considered to be a first-timer if they make blood
The web application has a system database where it donation in a new place.
consists of the information regarding existing and new
donors and acceptors. The main problem is related with With the manual system, there are difficulties in
the information about knowing the details of donors in managing the donors' records hence the system requires
the city. The android application uses the GIS where the more space to store information and it also has a risk to
function is called as Geocoding which creates a point on a damage or misplace the documents. It has affected to the
map to find the nearest locality of donor. A function of low security of the current system. Unauthorized users
GIS is Onscreen digitization where the acceptor or patient may access the documents and make some changes. The
who need the blood from donor for entering the data on accessibility is limitless and it affects more corruptions to
the screen of the mobile phone. the system .The current system is handled by the human
beings without the aid of a machine. Human beings
Gift4Life is a similar system in Sri Lankan context that was
create more faults than a computer when inserting,
developed as a web based blood campaign management
system and also an android application. The application deleting and updating data to the document manually.
automates the operations online and has high user This is where designing a model to utilize donation of
involvement in user registration, hosting a blood drive blood becomes more essential.
and search for a blood drive (Rajapaksha, 2013). A blood
donor information management system that supports C. Hypothesis for Proposed Model
interconnection with e-mail, notification alerts or feed Proposed Information System Model can improve
backs and social media. It also Includes the location efficiency of Blood Donation of Sri Lanka as it is a critical
based services and monitoring of statistics (report issue as indicated above. Users of the proposed system
generating facility). Android application that has
can easily access through the web application with
searching, filtering and navigating facilities, updating
minimum errors and mainly overcome the existing
donor profiles, get and spread information, use of social
media and location based services. problem of the system. Donors who are willing to donate
blood can be accomplished the donation effectively with
The biggest advantage of Android is that it is an open their busy schedules and finally transfusion can be
source, integrated software platform and it also has a achieved for the justification of particular patients. As a
modern design so it is easy to use an install as well. whole the proposed solution will be benefited to the
Android allows developers to design applications for patients who are required blood.
users based on their preferences. This is possible as
Android OS is customizable for the particular project D. Experimental Design
based on blood donation management. As android is an Proposed Information Model will use a central database
open platform it always tends to be far less to store blood bank details of Sri Lanka including donor
expensive than other than conventional products.
details, blood stock details and details about blood
donation campaigns. Since the system is web based,
B. Failures in the Current Practices
authorized personals can login anywhere and anytime.
With the aid of observations and study problem
User interfaces developed using ASP.NET that allows
definition of the research domain can be identified.
access to SQL database which located on the computer to
Existing system does not facilitate donors to make early
retrieve store and update the information. The solution

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 Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

also embraces a php based system that will store the user only receives the result of his/her request which
details of patients who are required blood. This portion capture the storage details from the user.
of the solution will be connected to the central data base
with the aid of a web service that will be written as a web E. Data Gathering & Analysis
method of ASP.Net. This research was highly based on gathering data using
the techniques explicitly interviews, questionnaires,
Information System Model that is introduced through observations and documentary reviews. Here, interviews
this research has been consisted with three layers namely were conducted as face to face and though telephone
Presentation Layer, Application Layer and Data Link with the blood bank staff members as representation of
Layer. Presentation Layer handles interactions with users server side as well as with the medical officer in charge in
by controlling interfaces to present information that are certain hospital to represent client side. Interviews had
identified in observations and study in the scientific been accompanied with an administrative member of
method. Information which is gathered by the Blood Bank in Narahenpita and a medical officer in
presentation layer will be delivered to the application Kegalle teaching hospital to identify the existing
layer in order to manipulate according to the given procedure, failures and the suggestions. The existing
instructions. domain was also studied through the observation of
current practices. Documents that had been provided by
The foremost roles of the proposed model are the interviewees were greatly useful to get a clear idea of
Administrator, Donor, and Medical Officer In charge, the process. Blood Request forms, Blood stock details
Medical laboratory Technician (MLT), Nurses, Public forms, donor registration forms and blood issuing forms
Health Inspector (PHI) and Campaign Organizer. Here, are directly provided and donor information book that
donors have the facility of creating their profiles by keeps all the details of donors was revealed.
entering their main details. They are also able view the
details of upcoming events that will be held by the Blood Primary data have been gathered from the National
bank of Sri Lanka. MLTs, Nurses and PHIs will have the Blood Bank of Sri Lanka and Kegalle Teaching Hospital.
ability to enter donor details, blood stock details and Primary data are the basic information to develop the
blood campaign details. Any user who accesses this application such as Donor Details, Patient Details, Blood
solution will have a great chance to consolidate a blood Stock Details, Stock Movements and Campaign Details.
donation campaign with the approval and the help of the A mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodologies
national Blood Bank of Sri Lanka. Medical Officer In has been used as data analysis. Interviews and
charge will enter the patient details through the system observations had been considered as qualitative methods
in the particular hospital that will be designed using php. where questionnaires and documentary review had been
deliberated as quantitative methods.
Application layer builds collaboration between the
presentation layer where the inputs of the interfaces and III. RESULTS
the data link layer where the required data are With an in-depth analysis of data which have been
contained. To accomplish the objectives of the proposed gathered the proposed solution have been developed in
model, the application layer designates the logics and ASP.net as server end with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
processes of the solution. The solution will be designed and php as client end with MySQL database .This
by using the ASP.Net. Proposed work predominantly consists with modules
specifically donor registration, patient registration, blood
Data Link Layer comprises the database management stock management, stock movements, donor motivations
applications which will be facilitated to store the data of and campaign management.
each module. Data base that is designed by Microsoft
SQL Server 2008 R2contains separate tables to store The solution has the ability to create donor profiles
details of Donor, Donation, Blood Stock, Blood Issuing entering proper username and password. Here, he can
and etc. The users access the data that stored in the register by filling main details and system has the ability
application on the data link layer over well designed to search if the donor is qualified for donation with his
interfaces that run on the presentation layer and the main details. If the donor is qualified with his main details
system will send an e-mail to inform the particular donor.
The system should be able to focus the location of the

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Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

particular donor. This solution will also inform the

location that the donor can face to the test and if
he/she is qualified, the transfusion can be completed
and also have the ability to cancel the donor registration
of any donor before or after getting blood. This kind of
situations can be arrived due to disqualifications of those
donors.

In the client side, authorized medical officers can add

patient details to the system when the blood is
required and alert will display in the system about the
request in order to response to the particular request.
According to the blood group of the particular patient the
system will search if the blood of particular blood group
is available. If the particular blood group is not available
system has the ability to view it and send e-mails for
nearest cluster. And also system will send an e-mail or a
message to the donors who are matched with the blood
group of the particular patient who required blood if the
cluster does not available the particular blood group.
Figure 4. Donation Details
Proposed solution can access at any time details of both Source: Author
reserved and unreserved stock (by type of units, group
and special characteristics. System has the ability to
add/edit/delete details of shelf life of all units (time to
expiry and will provide details of stock received, stock
used and stock discard at monthly/as required. System
should have the ability to record and stock details of
unit movements including transfer between unreserved
and reserved stock. System will also have functionalities
such as linking all blood donation centres to generate
the National Donor Registry to maintain the National
Donor Registry for the system to alert suitability for
donation status of the donor and ability for the system to Figure 5. Visualizing Blood Groups
view details of blood donation campaigns all over the Source: Author
country.
With an in-depth analysis of data that were gathered and
Following figures illustrates some of the interfaces of the the results that were gained by introducing this system,
proposed solution. the mentioned hypothesis can be easily proved.
Proposed system have been used in real blood bank
environment and documents were proved that Users of
the system can easily access through the web application
with minimum errors and mainly overcome the existing
problem of the system. The quality of the system was in a
high with compared to manual system and Donors who
are willing to donate blood can be accomplished the
donation. As a whole, Transfusion can be achieved by
providing a great chance to the helpless patients who
Figure 3. Home Page of MIS were suffering with requirement of blood.
Source: Author

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 Proceedings of 8th International Research Conference, KDU, Published November 2015

‘Ministry of Health, Malaysia’ 2006, BLOOD BANK

INFORMATION SYSTEM, viewed 9 June 2015,
http://www.moh.gov.my/images/gallery/publications/hi/
Blood_Bank_Information_System.pdf

Priya, P, Saranya, V, Shabana, S, Subraman, K 2014, The

Figure 6. Matching Blood Groups using Web Service Optimization of Blood Donor Information and
Source: Author Management System by Technopedia, viewed 9 July
2015,
IV. CONCLUSION http://www.ijirset.com/upload/2014/icets/77_CS323.pdf
In this paper, an Information System Model to utilize the
Donation of Blood has been explored. The research Rajapaksha, P 2013, Gift 4 Life-Blood Campaign
Management System, viewed 9 July 2015,
observed the underlying characteristics of blood
http://www.slideshare.net/parindarajapaksha/gift-4-life-
donation and related data, and pointed out the relevant
v-11-blood-camp-management-system
decisions for identified donation operations. Then, with
the literal concerns on blood donation and transfusion Tuan, TG 2006, Online Blood Donation Reservation And
service, various technologies that support were reviewed Management System, viewed 9 June 2015,
and commented in detail. The service provided by the HTTP://LIBRARY.UTEM.EDU.MY/INDEX2.PHP?OPTION=COM_DOCMA
proposed system is needed and valuable to health N&TASK=DOC_VIEW&GID=4279&ITEMID=113.
sector where a quality of the blood is considered for
the safety of the patient through a systematic process BIOGRAPHY OF AUTHORS
by the blood management system. Finally, the research
implemented an information system model to utilize the SRCN Senanayake is a final year
donation of Blood in National Blood Bank of Sri Lanka. It undergraduate in Faculty of Computing
is based on an ASP.net web application using the Service at KDU. She is following Bachelor of
Oriented Architecture. Science in Information Technology and
currently maintaining above 3.7 GPA.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Presently, she is in her internship period
Authors would like to acknowledge Mr. Udara at VirtusaPvt.Ltd. Her research titled “MIS for National
Sandakelum and all the staff members of National Blood Blood Bank of Sri Lanka” was based on her individual
project that needs to be fulfilled as a part of the degree
Bank of Sri Lanka who were helped to understand the
program. She is interested in research areas that will be
research domain and all the staff members of Blood Bank
covered computing with social science aspects.
section in Teaching Hospital, Kegalle. Special thanks go to
the supervisor, Mr. ADAI Gunasekara and Major Kumar ADAI Gunesekera is a Lecturer of
for all their support and assistance. Department of IT & Mathematics, KDU.
He received his BSc in Computing &
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http://www.academia.edu/150774/On_decision_making Colombo and also he has acquired his master’s from the
_support_in_blood_bank_information_systems same university. Presently he is reading for his PhD at
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www.ijera.com/papers/vol%201%20issue%202/0122602 more than five year experience in Academic Program
63AF.pdf. management. His research interests are E-Government, E-
Health, Digital Divide, and E-Learning.
‘Mays Business School’ 2014, What is Management
Systems, viewed 16 March 2014,
http://mays.tamu.edu/info/what-is-mis/

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