Bringing Pediatric Blood Collection Into the Home: A Parent-Administered Study of RedDrop ONE

Frequent blood testing is a routine but burdensome reality for many children, particularly those with chronic, rare, or medically complex conditions. Repeated clinic, hospital, and laboratory visits can disrupt family life, increase stress for children and caregivers, and limit access to timely monitoring and research participation. Despite advances in pediatric care, blood collection has remained largely tethered to in-person clinical settings. This study validates a new model: safe, effective, parent-administered pediatric blood collection performed at-home. We evaluated the RedDrop ONE capillary blood collection device in a real-world, parent-administered home setting to determine whether non-clinical caregivers can reliably collect clinically meaningful blood samples from children without venipuncture, specialized training, or in-clinic support. Conducted under Institutional Review Board (IRB) oversight, this observational usability study enrolled 50 children aged 3-17 years across a geographically diverse U.S.-based pediatric population, including healthy and medically fragile children with chronic autoimmune and rare diseases. All study activities, including enrollment, consent, instruction, collection, and sample return, were completed remotely, reflecting real-world adoption conditions rather than controlled clinical environments. Parents successfully collected blood samples from their children at home with high consistency, low perceived pain, and strong overall acceptance. Across collections, blood and serum volumes were sufficient and reproducible, and laboratory analysis confirmed strong analytical concordance between samples collected from two different anatomical sites, arm and leg. Parents reported high confidence using the device, short collection times, and a high likelihood of completing collections on the first attempt. Importantly, both parents and children rated the overall experience as better than expected, and parents consistently reported that the RedDrop ONE experience was superior to traditional finger-prick and needle-based venous blood draws. Parents reported minimal child discomfort and greater flexibility by avoiding in-clinic phlebotomy visits. These benefits are especially meaningful for families managing chronic or rare pediatric conditions that require repeated blood monitoring. By enabling blood collection at-home, this model reduces travel burden, scheduling constraints, and procedural anxiety while maintaining analytical reliability. This study also demonstrated that parent-administered pediatric blood collection can support real-world clinical workflows beyond research. All samples were successfully shipped overnight at ambient temperature and processed by a CLIA-certified laboratory, supporting feasibility for remote pediatric patient monitoring and decentralized clinical trials. While lipid testing served as the representative clinical use case, the volumes and consistency achieved exceeded volume thresholds commonly required for advanced downstream applications, including proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, and genomic analyses. Taken together, these findings validate parent-administered pediatric blood collection as a practical, scalable alternative to in-clinic phlebotomy for many use cases. By shifting blood collection from the clinic to the home, this approach has the potential to reduce reliance on in-person phlebotomy, integrate seamlessly into routine pediatric care, and expand access to monitoring and research for families who face geographic, logistical, or medical barriers. For health systems, researchers, and parents alike, this study supports a future in which clinically meaningful pediatric blood collection is no longer limited by healthcare facility location but instead centered on the child and family.