PlasmaConnect won 1st at the international healthhacks hackathon.
PlasmaConnect will connect potential plasma donors with plasma collection centers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies who will need plasma to cure COVID-19 and various diseases and conduct clinical testing.
In the current global pandemic, no specific antiviral treatment or vaccine exists. The only FDA approved investigational treatment is convalescent plasma. Luckily, COVID-19 recovered patients are all potential convalescent plasma donors for future COVID-19 patients. Plasma donations are also becoming more important for treating a variety of rare, chronic and/or genetic diseases, as well serious, often life-threatening medical conditions. Essentially, plasma is gradually becoming a great necessity in medical treatments of all kinds. However, due to a lack of awareness of both the benefits of plasma donations and the safety of the donation process, many recovered patients are not willing donors. Also, many patients may have recovered using home remedies and may not have been seen by a healthcare provider. This is particularly true for healthy, young, asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients; non-white minority patients; and also in many countries outside the U.S. Thus, these people are not part of new registries of donors that are being currently created by hospitals or groups of hospitals within the U.S. healthcare system, causing these institutions to have a severe lack of plasma treatments for their patients. Leveraging an iOS/Android app and web application, PlasmaConnect will connect potential plasma donors with plasma collection centers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies who will need plasma to cure COVID-19 and various diseases and conduct clinical testing. Potential plasma donors will sign up and be verified through our platform, and facilities requiring plasma will be able to use the platform to search for the potential donors and connect with them. Thus, PlasmaConnect will be able to raise awareness about the speed, simplicity, and safety of the registration and donation process, helping more recovered patients become willing donors. Through interacting personally with doctors and nurses about donations, these potential donors will also be able to understand the positive impact they are making and perhaps even spread the word, addressing the problem of a lack of awareness. Since PlasmaConnect puts donor registration in the hands of the donor, it will also solve the problem of home-treatment patients not being added by hospitals to registries, thus alleviating the current “lack” of available donors. And as a result, medical facilities will be able to obtain enough plasma to treat their patients and conduct research on future vaccines and cures, advancing the overall medical landscape.