Ferritin measurement IN Donors – Effectivity of iron Monitoring to diminish iron deficiency and low haemoglobin (FIND’EM)

An appropriate policy for iron monitoring is important for blood services worldwide. With FIND’EM, Sanquin will be the first to implement and simultaneously evaluate in a scientifically sound manner a new ferritin measurement policy. We thus aim to provide evidence on the effectiveness of Sanquin Blood Bank’s new ferritin measurement policy in donors, to lower the prevalence of iron deficiency and deferrals because of low haemoglobin (Hb).

Methodology

Sanquin Blood Bank is currently implementing a new ferritin measurement policy using a stepped wedge cluster-randomized trial approach. This pragmatic design involves random and sequential crossover of clusters (donation centers or regions) from control (the existing policy without ferritin measurements) to intervention (the ferritin measurement policy), until all clusters are exposed to this intervention. We aim to evaluate the effects of the intervention in terms of ferritin and Hb levels, low-Hb deferral rates, donor availability, costs and donor health. For this project we make use of routinely collected data from the blood bank information system, extended with data from questionnaires and additional ferritin measurements in randomly selected samples of donors at various time points across the blood donation clusters.