Facebook has made another move to emphasize its interest in healthcare.
At its F8 developer conference earlier this week, the social media giant announced it is expanding its blood donations feature.
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Last fall, Facebook unveiled a tool that allowed people to sign up to be blood donors. It initially rolled out in India and later expanded to Bangladesh and Pakistan. Asha Sharma, Facebook’s head of product for social good, said more than 8 million people have signed up thus far.
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Now, the company has announced a new capability — aptly named “Blood Donations on Facebook” — that enables users in the same three countries to find donation opportunities nearby.
The feature will become available on May 15.
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“In a few weeks, donors in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will be able to view the blood donation drives, requests for blood donors and blood banks in one place,” Sharma said via email.
As far as expanding the feature to other areas, she added that Facebook is “actively exploring and learning from other countries that have challenges in access to safe-blood to see if our feature can help make an impact.”
This latest announcement comes shortly after CNBC reported Facebook hit the pause button on a healthcare research project. The news broke amidst the drama of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
As part of the initiative, the company planned to pair hospital data about a patient (such as illnesses and medications) with what Facebook knows about the individual (such as age, marital status, children and community engagement). Uniting this data would give hospitals a way to determine which patients may need special care.
The tech giant was talking to institutions like the American College of Cardiology and Stanford University School of Medicine about participating.
However, in a statement sent to CNBC, Facebook said the “work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared or analyzed anyone’s data.”
Photo: Murat Göçmen, Getty Images