A blood tracking app is being prepped for battle

The Defense Department is looking for a mobile app to help it manage "theater blood." 

The Armed Services Blood Program collects, processes and ships blood and blood products to U.S. forces across the globe, ensuring that viable blood products are available for transfusion when and where required – whether that's on battlefields, on ships or in medical facilities. 

Currently, users access a web browser to access a U.S.-based database to manage the integrity of the blood supply chain and quality of blood products. The program is closely integrated with clinical services to track the total life cycle of blood products from the donor to the transfused patient or point of destruction. In the field, however, medical staff work in facilities with unreliable connectivity, making updates to the program difficult.

The proposed prototype mobile app must manage and document blood inventory, transfusions, donations and testing for diseases transmitted by transfusions.  It must do so in environments that may be disconnected, have intermittent connectivity or low-bandwidth connections to the DOD enterprise networks. The plan is for the app to allow staff to capture data offline and synchronize with the DOD enterprise database when connectivity is available.

The app should work on all configurations approved by the Defense Information Systems Agency -- from a single user on a single computing platform, to several local users with multiple computing platforms. The app must work with Windows operating system laptops and desktops and DISA-approved Android and iOS devices.

Selected developers will have access to a collaborative medical development framework that includes a software development kit, application programming interfaces and a number of shared services applications that manage single sign-on/authentication, patient demographic information and data communications capabilities.

Responses are due Aug. 7. Read the full request for project proposals here.