This template was developed by KW6GB and K4PUF as a radio delivery template to report blood product availability in a consistent format that also provides CSV data for collating by the recipient and mapping data for graphical representation of the location of resources. It is modeled on the Blood Availability board in the web-based Virginia Hospital Alerting and Status System (VHASS) but could be used by any agency with a need for the information.

READ:

This initial Blood Availability HTML can be used outside of Winlink Express. A non-Winlink-Express user can complete the Blood Availability initial.html form, SAVE the data, and then pass that SAVED data to the radio operator. The radio operator can LOAD that data file into their Blood Availability form to send to its destination via Winlink.

PRINTING.

Printing this form depends upon your selected printer and its settings. Various Web Browsers and their viewing sizes are not all the same. Printing from a browser’s print function may be different from the operating system’s default print mode. Select what works for you, for both printing and viewing. You may print direct to the printer or save it as a PDF, then print the PDF. Experiment to determine whether Landscape or Portrait orientation works better for you.

PURPOSE.

Hospital personnel use the Blood Availability form to report quantities of blood products on hand. Frequently sent to Regional or Corporate Hospital Coordination Centers to enable those centers to maintain awareness of the quantities and locations of blood product resources, either on a map, spreadsheet, or both. Winlink Express users can view and/or print the HTML form, use the Winlink Express “Form Map and CSV File” tool (globe icon on the menu bar) to display a map, generate a CSV file, generate a KML file, or import or export the data. Recipients without Winlink Express can still access the reported information in the plain text of the message.
PREPARATION.

Complete the form as follows:
THIS IS AN EXERCISE: Mark the checkbox unless reporting for an actual incident.

Date/Time: Accept the default date and time or change it as desired (typically to indicate “data valid as of” date and time). The comments field, below, can be used to indicate how this field has been used.

Facility Name: This should normally be the full name of the reporting facility (not a Winlink tactical address).

Facility Address: Enter the physical address of the reporting facility.

Facility Contact Name: Enter the name of the facility personnel supplying the data.

Facility Phone Number: Enter the telephone number that should be called if questions arise about the report.

Blood Availability: Enter numeric values for the number of units of each blood type product available at the reporting facility.

Comments: Enter free text comments as needed to clarify the reported information.

Approved by: Enter the name of the person approving the information entered on the form.

Attach CSV data file…: Choose whether to include the CSV data file with the message, allowing the recipient to develop a spreadsheet to track resources available at multiple facilities.

Facility Location: The default coordinates in this section are either (a) the center of the Grid Square entered in the Winlink Express Properties window or (b) the coordinates entered in a the Winlink Express GPS / Position Report window. Accept these, if accurate, or enter the actual coordinates of the reporting facility. These coordinates will be used by the “Form Map and CSV File” tool to plot the location of blood product resources.
NOTES.

ALL FIELDS ARE REQUIRED EXCEPT “COMMENTS.”
A copy of the Blood Availability form should be sent to and maintained within the Documentation Unit. A copy of all your Express traffic is in your Sent Items folder. You may wish to create a Personal Folder for the event and move your desired traffic into it. Winlink Express has an Export/Import feature so you can save this folder on your desktop or elsewhere if desired. You can even send the folder to another Winlink Express user for them to import.

MORE INFORMATION.

You can save your completed form data to a text file. This will allow you to populate the Bood Availability form with ALL entered form data. You do this prior to submitting the form. Then you can open a new Blood Availability form and load the saved HTML form data. NOTE: Date and Times will be the previous entered, so change if needed. This is much like using Firefox extension “Formlet.” It will save the info as a text file with the Date and Time as a file name. Now you can use any browser, save your form (as many versions as you like), and then re-populate. One technique is to populate the form with ONLY the data that will be common to all future uses of the form within a given incident. Because nearly all of the fields are required, leaving the Date/Time field and blood product quantity fields blank before saving will help prevent you from accidentally sending a form with an incorrect date or blood product quantities.