Questions/Answers

“Blood_Jek” The Savior is an initiative of transporting blood bags using motorcycle equipped with coolbox, thermometer and sirens for getting free passage, as well as the officers trained in blood packaging and transporting. The initiative aims to improve the blood distribution mechanism for safe and punctual delivery to the hospitals. The target of “Blood_Jek” is to reduce the number of complaints from 180 cases in 2007 to 10 cases in 2019 and the average number of blood needs from 4 bags to 2 bags for raising 1 gr/dl Haemoglobin. Lumajang is a regency with the area of 1,790.90 square kilometres and the population of 1,104,759. It has 6 hospitals: 2 government hospitals and 4 private hospitals. The Blood Center of Indonesian Red Cross (BC-IRC) is the only blood provider in Lumajang, located 1-15 km away from the hospitals. Public transport limitation as well as no routes directing to the hospital became problems for the patients’ families when taking the blood bags from BC as the distribution length and packaging of the blood will affect the quality. Through “Blood_Jek”, it is expected that there will be no delay in blood distribution mechanism in 2019.

The main idea of this initiative is to improve the mechanism of blood distribution from the delay and severe blood damage. and make blood distribution services more effective and efficient. Before the initiative, the blood bags were transported by the patient’s family members. They brought the blood in the plastic bags without maintaining the blood temperature and used the public transportation. These have lowered the quality of blood, even damaging it. “Blood_Jek” uses inclusive approach by engaging hospital staffs, patients and their family members. The service is provided for all people who need blood with the intention that the blood distribution mechanism is well-improved.

To achieve the SDGs, Blood Center (BC) established a program to realize the safe, punctual, affordable and sustainable blood providing service in 2022. Blood_Jek has an important role in decreasing mortality due to bleeding. “Blood_Jek” has a direct contribution on lowering the maternal mortality rate caused by postpartum hemorrhage as indicated in SDGs’ target 3.1., lowering the numbers of the deaths of newborns and children under 5 years old (Target 3.2), and reducing the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents in (Target 3.6) through direct delivery service with proper packaging and keeping blood temperature during transporting to the hospitals.

This program has a significant impact to direct beneficieries such as pregnant mothers, newborns, children under five years old and traffic accident patients. The groups that received the “Blood_Jek” services are the ones who have requested for the blood, reaching up to 8,160 patients. Since 2011, this vulnerable group has been reached by Blood_Jek services that responded the blood request from hospital with the supervision from Blood_Jek team. The direct beneficieries are priorities under cyto or emergency conditions. Compliance monitoring form for blood distribution released by Lumajang Blood Center will be given to the Blood_Jek officer and the officer will pass it to the hospital and patient’s family.

Blood_Jek produced a positive impact because patients’ families are not involved in the blood draw process at Blood Center Indonesian Red Cross - they are more focused with the treatment and caring for patients at the hospital. The blood to be transfused are carried by Blood_Jek officers, the speed and quality of blood are preserved until arriving at the hospital. Medical action could proceed according to the doctor’s plan, while death due to delay or dragged treatment caused by quality degradation could be avoided.

This initiative is originally from the Lumajang Blood Center of Indonesian Red Cross. Initiated in 2011, this blood delivery service has been introduced to the people in a very simple way. Blood was delivered directly by the Blood Center officers without adequate service system and tools. In 2012, Blood_Jek gets perfected the initiative by adding competent blood courier personnel, preparing a motorcycle design – equipped with a big box containing 2 cool boxes while each box contains thermometer for blood delivery purposes, and produced an inter-region service Standard Operational Procedure.

Blood_Jek is a simple initiative that has been transferred by several blood service units from inside and outside East Java. They conducted a comparative review at the Lumajang Blood Center. The implementation of Blood_Jek was strengthened by the issuance of a letter from the Indonesia Red Cross Headquarters in East Java number 0316 / 02.06.00 / ADM / II / 2017 dated 21 February 2017 on blood distribution mechanism of Blood_Jek to become an inspiration for all Indonesian Red Cross Blood Center throughout East Java regencies / cities. This initiative was brought to the public service innovation workshop in South Sulawesi Province organized by the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform. Blood_Jek was even socialized at the APEC event, attended by 21 countries and hosted by the Ministry of Health. Its poster was presented at the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) in Toronto, Canada. It has also been replicated by several blood services in Indonesia including Indonesian Red Cross Blood Center in Probolinggo City, Ponorogo Regency, Blitar City, Bondowoso Regency, Mojokerto Regency, Purbalingga Regency and 5 regencies / cities in South Sulawesi Province.

Human resources, in this initiative Blood_Jek officers are Indonesian Red Cross staffs and appointed by the management. They received training on blood packaging and distribution. To support this, Lumajang Blood Center Indonesian Red Cross collaborated with the Customer Social Responsibility, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Lumajang Branch regarding Blood_Jek uniforms. At the end of 2016, Indonesian Red Cross Lumajang Blood Center received assistance of 1 Blood_Jek unit from Indonesian Red Cross, East Java Province as an appreciation for the successful implementation of Blood_Jek. Blood_Jek’s funding allocation comes solely from the Blood Processing Replacement Fee (BPPD) of 3130,49 USD annually for personnel, vehicle maintenance and fuel.

This initiative has been ongoing for 7 years. Its services produced positive impact towards the community’s socio-economy. With Blood_Jek, medical action services are in accordance with the plan due to punctuality in blood delivery, death risks can be minimized (delay of patient treatment). With good-quality blood, patients will recover quickly and do not require longer treatment at the hospital (lengthen the treatment period). This impact was felt from the beginning of blood delivery service. All involved parties either the hospital, patients or their families understand better on the importance of blood quality for healing process. Currently they are more concerned on how to distribute blood on time and not damaged. The Lumajang Regency Government is becoming more concerned towards blood services, and this is proved by facilitating cooperation between traffic units, the regional office of transportation, hospitals and the Indonesian Red Cross Blood Center. The bottom line – all parties supported the importance of Blood_Jek’s presence.

Yes

The Blood_Jek initiative is evaluated through the complaint management and satisfaction survey. With the open management system, the complaints can be submitted everyday by phone or coming directly to Lumajang Blood Center (LBC) staff. The complaint submission is conducted openly. It will be recorded and followed up promptly by the LBC staff in management review meeting. The meeting’s results will be disseminated to all officers and relevant stakeholders. Meanwhile, the satisfaction survey is conducted by LBC once every six months with the targeted respondents are relevant hospital staff (nurses/doctors).

Indicators used for the evaluation of this initiative are numbers of complain and public satisfaction index towards the service. Complainst received regarding aspects of blood speed and quality. Public satisfaction indicators include blood service system, blood security, accuracy in blood service, fast Blood Request, officer Responsibility, officer Ability, blood Speed Service and courtesy Officer.

After the Blood_Jek is implemented, the complaints about blood service continue to decrease, particularly in terms of the quality of the blood as well as quick delivery to the hospitals. The satisfaction survey results in 2017 have shown that the score for satisfaction index is 97 and the quality of service is A. These concluded that the service performance of Blood_Jek is very good.

As a program to improve the blood distribution mechanism, “Blood_Jek” is implemented through cooperation between hospitals, Corporate Social Responsibility of Bank Rakyat Indonesia, traffic unit of resort police department and regional offices of transportation and health. Initially the equipment for Blood_Jek such as motorcycle, coolbox and thermometer belonged to the assets of Lumajang Blood Center of Indonesian Red Cross, but the Blood_Jek’s uniforms are provided by the Corporate Social Responsibility of Bank Rakyat Indonesia. Hospitals as the blood’s users in providing medical treatments to the community absolutely need the guarantee on the availability of fast and quality blood. If this is not realized, complaints regarding blood service will increase. The improvement efforts of blood distribution mechanism will continue to enhance, involving the coordination between department of transportation and traffic unit facilitated by Organization Division of Lumajang Regency Government in supporting the existence of Blood_Jek as a blood transportation that is urgently needed to save the patient’s life. To improve the implementation of “Blood-Jek”, Regional Offier of Health has established this program as one of the services on supporting the community’s health by reducing the risk of death caused by bleeding.

The program has shown the importance of improved blood delivery mechanism. “Blood_Jek” highly influences the speed and safety of blood distribution services. A delay in delivering the blood will increase death risk among patients. The uncontrolled blood temperature and improper packaging will damage the blood, causing the delayed and longer medical treatment. Lumajang Blood center of Indonesian Red Cross has developed a simple blood distribution service system with lower cost. This system can be a reference by all blood service providers in Indonesia, even globally. This innovation aims to provide a comprehensive and quality blood services.