La Boit offers bloodmobiles with up to six donor beds.

For blood centers and other blood collection organizations, donation volume is something they think about daily. The need for blood is constant, and those organizations need donors walking into their clinics consistently in order to fulfill that need. That’s why so many blood centers ultimately decide to invest in bloodmobiles.

Solving Barriers to Donation

Time and awareness are two of the most common reasons that people don’t give blood. Traveling to and from the donation center, as well as the time for the actual donation itself, could take a couple hours out of a person’s day. In addition, many potential donors state that they don’t donate because no one has ever asked them. A bloodmobile parked outside their place of work solves both of those problems.

How Many Donor Beds and History Rooms Do You Need?

Whether purchasing your first bloodmobile or your fifth, you’ll need to consider the size of the vehicle that will best work for your organization and environment. In the case of a bloodmobile, that typically means how many donor beds and history rooms you’ll have on board.

La Boit Specialty Vehicles builds custom bloodmobiles with capabilities of up to six blood donor beds and two history rooms. When you really start to consider the surrounding population of potential donors, staffing needs, and max donations per bed, you’ll be able to come up with an estimate of daily output from the vehicle. While all blood donation centers could reasonably say that the more beds the better, you also need to consider what space you’ll need for additional things, such as blood storage, and supply and equipment storage. 

With all that said, 90% of the bloodmobiles that La Boit builds are 40ft-42ft in length with at least four beds and two history rooms. An additional history room can be accommodated if desired.

Seating Requirements

There are a few other considerations we discuss with our blood clients when designing their vehicles. For example, the type of seating required and placement of seating. Some bloodmobiles have both a waiting area and a recovery area. Some only include a recovery area. In addition, if bloodmobile staff will be traveling inside the clinic to and from locations, seats that are compliant for transport inside the clinic are required. These can perform double-duty as recovery area seating if necessary.

Storage Options

Configuring your bloodmobile’s storage options can feel overwhelming. Blood donations require a lot of supplies that need to be stored on the truck that will last through an entire day’s collection. And because it can’t be reused from donor to donor, those supplies need a space to be disposed of properly as well.

Things you’ll need to consider include, how much overhead storage will you require? What about disposal options? Or placement of sharps containers or glove dispensers? How about paperwork? And of course don’t forget the snacks. Luckily, La Boit are masters at cabinetry design. We can build open shelving, closed cabinetry, and locking drawers in pretty much every configuration imaginable. We can also add additional storage space under the carriage that is accessible from the outside.

Blood Storage

Most bloodmobiles operators use coolers to store and transport the day’s donations. How much space you’ll need for coolers and and placement of cooler storage is something to consider when designing a bloodmobile. La Boit offers custom-designed pull-out cooler shelving that allows bloodmobile operators to conveniently store and access their coolers throughout the day. Some operators require space for four coolers, others require space for only two.

Marketing Your Bloodmobile After Delivery

And lastly, because this blog is written by La Boit’s Marketing Department, we always want to remind our clients to present the right marketing for your bloodmobile once it’s built. Your vehicle’s graphics are an important part of that (read our blog about choosing graphics).

We also recommend a ribbon-cutting ceremony that you promote by sending press releases to all your local news outlets (don’t forget local blogs!). Bloodmobiles are a great human interest story, and you should be able to gain some positive press from your new bloodmobile with the possibility of a live remote.

And of course, engage on social media with lots of photos and video (La Boit will provide some of this before delivery). All of our blood center clients do a great job utilizing social platforms to get the word out about their mission.

We hope that you’ll consider La Boit Specialty Vehicles to build your next bloodmobile. Contact us anytime. Until then, view our photo gallery for some of the features we offer in our Bloodmobiles.

About La Boit Specialty Vehicles

La Boit Specialty Vehicles president Gil Blais first started La Boit in his garage in 1981, where he hand-made organizational boxes for traveling veterinarians. Fast forward to today, La Boit Specialty Vehicles is now a leader in specialty vehicle manufacturing for the Veterinary, Spay/Neuter/Adoption, Dental, Medical, Command, and Bloodmobile industries.

La Boit Specialty Vehicles offers a variety of vehicles to suit your needs, from 18ft pull-behind trailers to 40ft drivable coaches, none of which require a CDL to drive. Best of all, our vehicles are commercially-built from the chassis up for your specific needs, and are never converted RVs.

Mission Statement

Helping professionals around the world confidently deliver a higher level of service to their local markets by providing the highest quality custom mobile units in the industry!

We welcome your feedback and questions. Please contact us anytime or leave a comment below.