Blood Inventory Management: Hospital Best Practice

doi:10.1016/j.tmrv.2011.09.001

Transfusion Medicine Reviews

Volume 26, Issue 2, April 2012, Pages 153-163

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmrv.2011.09.001 Get rights and content

Blood is a perishable product, and hence good management of inventories is crucial. Blood inventory management is a trade-off between shortage and wastage. The challenge is to keep enough stock to ensure a 100% supply of blood while keeping time expiry losses at a minimum. This article focuses on inventory management of red blood cells in hospital transfusion laboratories to derive principles of best practice and makes recommendations that will ensure losses due to time expiry are kept to a minimum. The literature was reviewed to identify available models for perishable inventory management. Historical data from the UK blood supply chain was analyzed to identify hospitals with good inventory management practice and low wastage levels. Transfusion laboratory managers in the selected hospitals were interviewed in 7 case studies with the aim of identifying drivers for low wastage and good inventory management practice. The findings from the case studies were compared with the literature. The extant literature asserts that the drivers for good inventory performance are the use of complex inventory models and algorithms. This study has found this not to be the case. Instead, good performance is driven by the quality of transfusion laboratory staff, who must be skilled, regularly trained, and experienced. Electronic crossmatching, transparency of the inventory, and simple management procedures also facilitate good performance.

Section snippets

Literature Review

Literature on inventory management within the blood supply chain is rather limited. However, blood is a perishable and deteriorating product, and therefore, more general perishable inventory theory can potentially be applied to its management. Techniques used in industrial environments, for example, just in time, are not suitable for the blood supply system due to the consequences of an inventory shortage [17]. The majority of the extant literature is specifically related to the development of

Methodology

The objective of this exploratory research is to identify how good inventory practice can support a reduction in wastage of red blood cells (RBC) units in hospitals and how it compares with the findings from the literature. Data covering 277 hospitals in England and North Wales was provided by BSMS [28] in 2009. These data were analyzed to identify hospitals with low wastage levels of RBC. The database used for analysis contains information relating to inventory management such as

•
hospital type

Findings—Key themes and Discussion

The following section details the findings from the case studies.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Interviews with blood inventory managers in the top performing hospitals revealed 6 key themes that together drive good performance in blood stocks inventory management. These themes are human resources and training, stock levels and order patterns, transparency of inventories, simple inventory procedures, focus on freshness, and internal collaboration within the hospital. All of these themes highlight the importance of having high-quality, trained, and experienced staff. These staff must be

Acknowledgments

This research would not have been possible without the support of the Blood Stocks Management Scheme (BSMS). Detailed data about the UK blood supply chain was made available for research purposes for the first time. Access to these data allowed us the carry out this research.

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View full text

Blood Inventory Management: Hospital Best Practice

Section snippets

Literature Review

Methodology

Findings—Key themes and Discussion

Conclusions and Recommendations

Acknowledgments

Transfus Clin Biol.

Transfus Med Rev

Transfus Sci

Transfus Med Rev

Transfus Med Rev

Transfus Med Rev

Transfus Med Rev

Transfus Med Rev

Comput Oper Res

Health Policy

Eur J Oper Res

J Oper Manag

Comput Methods Programs Biomed

Eur J Oper Res

Omega

Int J Prod Econ

Eur J Oper Res

Int J Prod Econ

Int J Prod Econ

Oper Res Lett

Int J Prod Econ

Comput Oper Res

Comput Oper Res

Transfus Med Rev

Transfusion medicine—Blood transfusion

N Engl J Med

Provisional report on notifications pursuant to Section 21 TFG (German Transfusion Act) for 2010. 2011

A Report to Canadians—Canadian Blood Services 2008/20. 2010