Why We Swab: Development and Evaluation of a Library of Stories in Stem Cell Donation to Support the Recruitment of Committed Unrelated Donors for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Development and evaluation of checklists to support the recruitment of committed hematopoietic stem cell donors

“…The checklists also emphasized recruitment of the most-needed donors: young males and people from a diversity of ancestral backgrounds. This supports that the checklists contributed meaningfully to the observed recruitment outcomes and error reduction, and can be deployed a part of a larger effort (including training, 38 recruitment multimedia, [35][36][37]39,40 and key messaging) to support recruiters to realize best practices and recruit needed donor demographics.…”

“…There are several limitations to this analysis. With respect to the reduction in errors and improved donor recruitment outcomes seen post-implementation of the checklists, other variables may have contributed, including improvements over time to recruiter training unrelated to the checklists; additional experience accrued by each recruitment team; development of stem cell collection diagrams 35 and high-quality multimedia resources to support donor education 6,36,37 ; and the launch of a community of practice in stem cell donor recruitment in Canada, 38 in which all Stem Cell Club donor recruiters are members. Nevertheless, data from quantitative and qualitative analysis of recruiter feedback demonstrated that the checklists were frequently used as training and memory recall tools both before and at drives, including to guide recruiters to engage with needed donor demographics, deliver the information required to secure informed consent, and error-check registration and tissue sample collection.…”

“…42 We report an attrition rate of 30% post-implementation of the checklists, and further improvements are needed to reach the World Marrow Donor Association target of greater than 80% donor availability (less than 20% attrition rate). In addition to efforts prior to 6,36,37,40 and at time of recruitment (e.g., using these checklists) to improve knowledge and reduce ambivalence of potential donors toward donation, 18 efforts are needed downstream from recruitment to continue to engage and retain donors. The community of practice in stem cell donor recruitment in Canada has set reducing attrition as an objective, including collaboration with Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry to incorporate multimedia resources into e-blasts sent to donors at regular intervals following initial registration.…”

Development and evaluation of a community of practice to improve stem cell donor recruitment in Canada

“…The virtual format of the CoP has supported the shift to online donor recruitment by facilitating a campaign of online events across Canada to register stem cell donors. Furthermore, subcommittees of the CoP are developing online multimedia (i.e., TikTok videos, Why We Swab stories [33, 34], infographics [35], and whiteboard videos [36, 37]) to support the virtual recruitment of donors. CoP members are currently working in partnership with the Canadian Blood Services to develop a tool that tracks the impact of their virtual donor recruitment efforts.…”