Use of biometrics in blood banking to identify donors and transfusion recipients

A physician in Denmark wonders if any blood establishment in the US has gained experience from the use of biometrics (finger prints or iris scan) for donor and or patient identification?

The following comments have been received.

ADDENDA Mar. 4, 2008

1. A risk manager at the Indiana Blood Center (IBC) reports that they have entered into a contract with a commercial biometric software company to simplify donor identification and check-in using fingerprint identification. Rather than asking donors to carry a card, show photo ID or provide Social Security Numbers, IBC says the new system will provide a safe, secure and convenient means for donors to establish their identity at any of IBC's blood centers statewide. Beginning this month, when a donor is enrolled, the new system will create a mathematical template based on the donor's fingerprint, which is then associated in the software with that donor's unique IBC Donor Identification number. With each subsequent visit to an Indiana Blood Center donation site or mobile collection unit, an enrolled donor simply places his or her finger on a scanner to positively establish their identity.

ADDENDA April 7, 2008

2. A Canadian colleague comments that she has been using a fingerprint based biometrics protocol to access (securely) her laptop computer. In her personal experience the fingerprint scan works on first attempt only about 25% -33% of the time, and that multiple scan failures can occur before she can access her laptop. In some cases (out of frustration) she gives up and manually enters her password. Thus, she is leery of this technology. Having said the aforementioned, she would be interested in learning how well the Indiana Blood Center protocol is working out.

ADDENDA June 25, 2008

3. A representative of the Indiana Blood Center (IBC) reports that they now have about two months of experience with their digital fingerprint enrollment process and are approaching 5,000 donors who have enrolled. The reception has been very favorable to date and there have only been a few donors who have had difficulty enrolling. One prospective donor was a guitar player with very rough and tough fingers. The IBC representative also comments that they have had little or no difficulty with identifying enrolled donors. The excellent results seen by IBC may have a lot to do with the quality of the software and technology that was used to create their enrollment algorithm. In response to the Canadian colleague's concerns (see the Mar. 4, 2008 posting of this discussion), some laptops may have had finger scanning security added almost as an afterthought and these probably did not utilize the best algorithm available.

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Ira A. Shulman, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Editor & Moderator

W. Tait Stevens, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Assistant Editor & Moderator