[Feature]: Real-time Donor Availability Toggle for Emergency Alerts #59
Description
Problem Statement
🩸 Problem Statement: Donor Availability in Emergency Blood Alerts
In emergency blood donation systems, eligibility does not always equal availability.
Even when donors are:
- Verified
- Blood-group compatible
- Medically eligible
They may still be temporarily unavailable due to:
- Travel or work commitments
- Recent donation or recovery period
- Personal or situational constraints
- Inability to respond immediately
🚨 Current Challenge
The system currently assumes that all eligible donors are available at all times.
This results in:
- Alerts being sent to unavailable donors
- Critical time lost during emergencies
- Donor alert fatigue and disengagement
- Reduced trust in emergency notifications
In life-critical scenarios, every minute matters, and contacting unavailable donors delays response efforts.
💡 Why This Matters
Hospitals need real-time certainty, not just eligibility.
Donors need control, not constant interruptions.
Without a mechanism to represent temporary donor availability, the platform cannot:
- Prioritize donors who can immediately respond
- Optimize emergency alert delivery
- Provide a reliable and efficient emergency response system
This gap directly impacts the platform’s effectiveness in saving lives during urgent situations.
Proposed Solution
✅ Proposed Solution: Emergency Donor Availability Toggle
To address the gap between donor eligibility and real-time availability, we propose introducing an Emergency Donor Availability Toggle within the HaemoLogix platform.
🔁 Core Idea
Allow donors to explicitly indicate whether they are currently available to respond to emergency blood donation requests.
👤 Donor-Side Solution
- Introduce a simple toggle switch in the donor dashboard:
- 🟢 Available
- 🔴 Unavailable
- Optional enhancement:
- “Available for the next X hours”
- Automatic status updates:
- Auto-disable availability after a successful donation
- Auto-expire availability after the selected time window
- Full donor control to prevent alert fatigue and respect personal boundaries
🏥 Hospital & System-Side Solution
- Emergency alerts are sent only to donors marked as Available
- Matching logic filters donors based on:
- Blood group compatibility
- Location proximity
- Eligibility criteria
- Real-time availability status
- Prioritizes donors most likely to respond immediately
🛠️ Technical Approach (High-Level)
- Database
- Add availability fields:
isAvailable(boolean)availableUntil(timestamp, optional)
- Add availability fields:
- Backend
- Update donor matching logic to exclude unavailable donors
- Automatically reset availability on donation or expiry
- Frontend
- Availability toggle UI with optional time selector
- Notifications
- Trigger alerts only for available donors
🌍 Expected Impact
- Faster emergency response times
- Reduced notification noise
- Improved donor experience and trust
- More efficient use of hospital resources
- A system that reflects real human availability, not just eligibility
This solution is ethical, practical, scalable, and directly improves real-world outcomes where minutes can save lives.
Alternative Solutions
No response
Which User Role Benefits?
Donor
Priority (Your Opinion)
Critical - Blocking my use of HaemoLogix
Use Case / User Story
Use Case / User Story
As a blood donor, I want to control my real-time availability status so that I only receive emergency blood donation alerts when I am genuinely able to respond.
For example, if I am traveling, unwell, or unavailable for a few hours, I can temporarily mark myself as unavailable. This prevents me from receiving urgent alerts that I cannot act on, while allowing hospitals to reach donors who are actually ready to help.
This ensures faster response times during emergencies, reduces unnecessary notifications, and creates a more respectful and effective donor experience.
Mockups or Examples
No response
Expected Impact
Expected Impact
This feature would benefit a large portion of active donors and hospitals using HaemoLogix, especially during emergency and high-urgency blood requests.
By matching alerts only with donors who are currently available, the system can:
- Reduce response time in critical situations
- Minimize alert fatigue among donors
- Increase the likelihood of successful, timely donations
Hospitals benefit from faster and more reliable donor responses, while donors gain control over when they can participate, improving trust and long-term engagement with the platform.
Overall, this enhancement improves efficiency, scalability, and real-world usability of HaemoLogix in life-saving scenarios.
Additional Context
No response
Checklist
- I have searched existing issues to avoid duplicates
- This feature aligns with HaemoLogix's mission of efficient blood donation
- I am willing to help test this feature if implemented