Over the past 60 years, the Community Blood Center (CBC) has supplied life-saving blood to 800,000 people throughout Kansas and Missouri. They are now serving 70 counties, and to meet the needs of patients at 60 different hospitals for blood and blood components, the Community Blood Center relies on approximately 500 donors every weekday. In order to fulfil this need, blood donation cannot happen only at the blood centre; they must depend on blood drives throughout the two states.

Challenge

To collect enough donations, the Community Blood Center has invested in mobile blood banks–a fleet of vans that are fully stocked with everything necessary for a blood donation procedure. The medical equipment they are using is loaded into vans that travel to satellite locations where blood can be collected in public places around the two states.

It’s no small feat to manage all of the technology that goes into a mobile blood bank. Their mobile technology needs to be loaded into the van every morning and unloaded from the van every night–as well as unloaded from the van to the blood collection site and back onto the van to be transported back to the blood centre.

When moving as many as 16 laptops/tablets, 8 keyboards, 3 wireless printers, 3 webcams, and all of their power supplies (per van), the task can be fairly daunting. With some ingenuity, the Blood Bank was able to come up with a custom solution that met their needs.

The Solution

The blood bank needed a “mobile device kit” that could easily charge, store, secure and transport a wide variety of mobile devices and all necessary power supplies. They found success in the PC Locs Carrier 40 Cart. Because of the open-concept design, they were able to remove half of the Baskets and retrofit their own padding and shelf to accommodate their unique needs.

Durability, easy transport of devices and efficient charging without removing devices from the Cart were all critical components of their successful mobile device deployment.

Results

A generation of Kansas and Missouri citizens has grown up with the Community Blood Center, and they know if blood is needed in the community during an emergency, Community Blood Center will make sure it’s there.

* Please Note: The Carrier 40 Cart is not recommended for outdoor use. Modifications were made to the exterior of the Cart to make it suitable for outdoor use–including industrial strength wheels, reinforced chassis and a customized cover.