The Blood Bank of Hawaii is relaxing its eligibility guidelines and adopting a friendlier questionnaire on Tuesday, some of the broadest changes by the state’s only blood center in more than a decade, to enlarge its donor pool and attract younger donors.

"We have changed our concept," said Dr. Kim-Anh Nguyen, president and chief executive officer of the blood bank. "In the past, we were so conservative that we were almost treating donors like patients and we were trying to be their nurses and their doctors. We understand that that’s not really our role."

Officials at the blood bank, the nation’s third oldest after opening its doors in 1941, hope shedding the strict eligibility requirements will bring in more donors.

Recent studies show 35 percent of the population is probably eligible to donate, but only 2 percent of Hawaii’s population does. Ninety percent of the blood supply comes from repeat donors, and that segment is shrinking as the donor pool ages, Nguyen said.

Donated blood saves the lives of premature babies, burn victims, critical crash victims, cancer patients and people undergoing organ transplants, dialysis or other conditions. About 25,000 people donate every year to the blood bank, supplying about 55,000 pints of blood to the state’s 17 community hospitals. Only Tripler Army Medical Center has its own supply of blood, which comes from the military community.

Blood bank officials emphasized that the changes were made only after careful analysis.

"The blood supply will be just as safe as it always has," said Dr. Randal Covin, the blood bank’s medical director. "We’re just going to, however, be able to have more donors."

He said many of the restrictions being dropped were originally for protecting donors, but have become outdated.

Nguyen said the center waited for at least a decade for scientific evidence to prove the safety of the liberal guidelines before adopting them. She said large blood centers on the mainland already use the policies Hawaii is adopting, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates blood banks in the U.S., also reviewed and approved the center’s new guidelines.

Under the new criteria, the blood bank will accept blood from stroke victims and those with heart conditions, lung conditions and autoimmune disorders. Also welcomed into the donation chair quicker will be former cancer patients and those freshly tattooed or pierced.

Nguyen said that over the past two or three decades many reasons have been created to turn away potential blood donors. But medical advancements and scientific knowledge are allowing the blood bank to accept previously deferred donors.

Heart surgery, for example, used to be a life-changing event, which is why people with a heart condition were banned from donating blood. But those patients now leave the hospital a few days after surgery and live healthier lives, allowing them to donate, Nguyen said.

The same with stroke victims. In addition, research has shown that patients receiving blood from people with autoimmune disorders like lupus are not put at risk, Nguyen said.

Covin said cancer patients need their blood to recover, but with medical improvements, can now give blood after one year rather than five.

Travel restrictions, however, will remain a reason for rejecting a donor because the restrictions are mandated by the federal government to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Nguyen said the center also hopes to attract donors by abandoning the practice of asking donors sensitive questions about sexual behavior. Instead, donors will fill out a simple questionnaire with shorter questions.

"My role is to ask them, ‘Are you feeling well and healthy today?’" she said. If the donor doesn’t have one of the few conditions to prevent them from donating, then "roll up your sleeve, we’ll take your word for it," she said.

The questions are only one layer of protection and are followed by more than a dozen tests performed on the donated blood.

"We need to open the door to more donors," she said. "If 200 people don’t roll up their sleeves every day, we’re not going to be able to meet people’s needs."