Veterans may soon have a blue box to go along with theBlue Button. A Texas entrepreneur is working on a product that erases the need to visit the doctor’s office to give a blood sample and to keep it cold once it is taken.
HemaSpotis a plastic, blue, matchbook-size box. Inside is a flower with eight petals made of the same absorbent paper used to collect blood from a newborn’s heel. A person pricks a finger with a lancet and drops the blood in the center of the kit. The flower is set in a ring of desiccant, which dries out the sample. The person the drops the sample in the mail to a lab. Each petal can be removed and analyzed separately.
“The filter paper form allows the blood to spread out evenly and the blue box keeps it dark,” founder Dr. Jeannette Hill said. “There is no chance of contamination.”
