Developing a Blood Donor Management System for General Hospitals in Rivers State

Blood shortages in general hospitals across Rivers State frequently arise from the absence of organised donor databases and real-time blood availability tracking, leading to preventable clinical complications. This study presents the development of a blood donor management system for general hospitals in Rivers State, South South Nigeria. The system was developed using PHP and MySQL, incorporating modules for donor registration, blood group classification, inventory tracking, request management, and donor notification via SMS. Requirements were gathered through interviews with blood bank staff at two general hospitals in Port Harcourt and one in Obio-Akpor. The system supports search and matching of available blood units against patient blood group requests, with automated low-stock alerts sent to registered donors via SMS gateway integration. Development used the waterfall model with a dedicated testing phase. Functional testing validated the accuracy of blood group matching logic across all eight ABO-Rh blood types. System performance under 30 concurrent users showed mean response times of 1.8 seconds. A three-month pilot at the Port Harcourt General Hospital registered 420 donors and processed 185 blood requests, of which 94 percent were matched within 24 hours compared to a baseline fulfilment rate of 67 percent. Staff satisfaction with the system was rated 4.2 out of 5.0 in post-pilot surveys. Recommendations include integration with the Rivers State health information system and mobile access for field-based medical personnel.

Keywords: blood donor management, hospital information system, Rivers State, blood bank, South South Nigeria