Your digest

Delivering hope, one cord blood donation at a time

Every day at four hospitals across Canada, many parents welcoming new babies to the world also choose to bring hope to patients, by donating to Canadian Blood Services’ Cord Blood Bank. To mark Cord Blood Awareness Month this July, we’ve been celebrating generous donors and grateful recipients of cord blood. Now, we’re introducing you to some of the Canadian Blood Services employees for whom collecting and preserving lifesaving cord blood donations is a heartfelt mission. Thanks to the passion and dedication of staff like Aileen Wiebe, Andrea Cheung and Denise Swaby, all cord blood specialists in Edmonton, Alta., we are continuing to build a diverse bank of lifesaving stem cells for patients across Canada, one connection at a time. Read their stories on blood.ca.

‘Gratitude isn’t a big enough word to describe how we feel’

Like many cancer patients, nine-year-old Ollie Acosta-Pickering required many transfusions of red blood cells and platelets over the course of his illness. Following a stem cell transplant last year, he also received a medication derived from plasma. Now, to mark the one-year anniversary of his successful transplant, Ollie and his family are encouraging people across Canada to donate blood between July 19 and 24 as part of his “re-birthday” event. “I always say that gratitude isn’t a big enough word to describe how we feel,” says Ollie’s mother, Dawn. “And because so many people helped us, we’re so glad to be able to help others.” Read more on blood.ca and learn how you can celebrate Ollie by booking your appointment to donate blood.

Wellness workshop offers tips for exercising in warmer weather

You know the drill: Every year, you wait all winter long for summer to arrive, dreaming of the outdoor activities you could partake in if the weather was nice. Then, when the warmer months finally arrive, the extreme heat and humidity can sometimes make it difficult to spend any time outdoors, let alone exercise. To help support you and your family in safely staying active in the summer heat, we have partnered with GoodLife Fitness to offer a free webinar next Friday, July 23 at 3 p.m. (ET) that will provide tips and precautions for exercising in hot weather. To participate, just click the Zoom meeting link and enter the corresponding meeting ID (960 1194 2937) and passcode (544392).

Question of the day: With the need for blood products increasing across the country, how are we ensuring not only that donors are booking appointments, but that we’re providing a positive donation experience so that they keep coming back?

We know that a desire to help save lives is what motivates many first-time donors to book appointments. We also know that what keeps them coming back is an exceptional donation experience.

To help ensure that our generous donors continue to feel valued, the donor experience team tracks numerous metrics through our voice-of-donor software, Clarabridge, to evaluate how our organization is doing from a frontline donor experience standpoint.

This fundamental tool captures and analyzes all completed post-donation surveys for blood, plasma and stem cells and enables us to track, report and evaluate metrics like overall satisfaction and the degree to which a donor would likely recommend Canadian Blood Services to friends or family members. The tool also tracks metrics like appreciation, care and respect, and how well staff answered questions, to assess how well we are honouring our commitment to donors.

Once metrics have been reviewed and evaluated, the DX team works closely with regional teams to make ongoing improvements to the donor experience.

Visit Connect to learn more about how we’re continually evaluating and enhancing our frontline donor experience.

Image

About your digest

This digest highlights the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content like articles and videos to remind us that what we do matters.  No access to email? No problem — all this information and more can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.     

Click here to read past editions of your digest. 

Have questions? Check out blood.ca/employees or email us at communications@blood.ca