Delete Blood Cancer DKMS Connects With More Patients Through Radian6

When his wife was diagnosed with blood cancer in 1990, Peter Harf and his daughters were told that the cancer could be treated with a life-saving bone marrow transplant — if doctors could find a matching donor. However, the chances of finding a donor match were daunting: the odds for most patients ranged from one in 20,000 to one in millions. At the time, only 3,000 donors were registered in their native Germany. The situation seemed hopeless.

Despite the challenges, the Harfs mobilized to find a donor, recruiting over 68,000 bone marrow donors in just one year. Unfortunately, Peter’s wife did not survive her cancer, but the Harf family continued her legacy by founding the German-based organization DKMS in 1991. The organization seeks to recruit bone marrow and stem cell donors for patients in need of lifesaving transplants. It has registered over 3.7 million potential donors worldwide and helped save more than 36,000 lives.

In 2004, DKMS expanded to the U.S., under the name Delete Blood Cancer DKMS. Thousands of US patients who were searching for donors were going without the support they needed to find a compatible donor. Peter Harf set out to change this.

But that all changed when Delete Blood Cancer DKMS adopted Salesforce’s Radian6 to monitor social channels for potential patients in the US. “With social media, we could address patients and families that we didn’t previously know existed,” said Kuthan. By monitoring social channels, Delete Blood Cancer DKMS looks for individual posts about leukemia and blood cancers on sites like Twitter and Facebook. “For example,” Kuthan posited, “if a patient tweets that she got diagnosed, we can send her a message telling her we specialize in patients like her. We previously had no connection with that person, but with social media, we can generate a chance at life for her.”

With Radian6, Delete Blood Cancer DKMS is mobilizing to save thousands of patients suffering from blood cancers worldwide. “A year from now, when we have more data from transplants that have been enabled through our Radian6 outreach, we will be able to say how many lives we were able to save with Salesforce,” said Kuthan. “That is our return on investment. Our key performance indicator is saving lives.”