Platelet production planning to ensure availability while minimizing outdating

Abstract

Steps were undertaken to reduce platelet concentrate outdating while maintaining the ability to provide them to hospitals as needed. A brief daily information exchange was established with the purpose of determining a platelet concentrate production goal for each weekday. This procedure has resulted in the ability to meet 100 percent of the hospital demand while reducing platelet concentrate outdating from greater than 20 percent to 2.95 percent over a 6-month period. When considering the 4 months when all platelet concentrates had 5-day expiration dates, the outdating rate was 2.57 percent. The significant reduction in outdating brought about by our procedure can result in substantial economic savings for a regional blood supplier.

Variation of platelet production and discard rates in 17 blood centers representing 10 European countries from 2000 to 2002

“…This may partly explain why all blood centers except two in this study produced PLTs by two methods to enhance their responsiveness. PLT products are short‐aged for various reasons, and outdating has been considered the main reason for discarded PLTs 10,12 , 22,24 , 26 . Much effort has been directed to developing methods to allow prolonged PLT storage, such as new preservation solutions, cold storage, 27 and the implementation of bacterial screening followed by extended shelf life 7,8 , 10,28 .…”

“…PLT products are short-aged for various reasons, and outdating has been considered the main reason for discarded PLTs. 10,12,22,24,26 Much effort has been directed to developing methods to allow prolonged PLT storage, such as new preservation solutions, cold storage, 27 and the implementation of bac-terial screening followed by extended shelf life. 7,8,10,28 A threshold for acceptable PLT discard rate should be defined at each blood center after evaluating their discard rate against that of the others.…”

“…Information technology specifically tailored for PLT inventory management would also contribute to increasing the efficiency of managing PLT inventories. 17,26 It is known that labor costs contribute substantially to the efficiency of component preparation. 19 For this analysis, it was assumed that the number of cellular components prepared in 1 working hour (the index) would reflect different practices between the centers regarding, for example, the number of full-and part-time employees, the number of shifts, and the lead times of production.…”

Simulation-optimization model for production planning in the blood supply chain

“…This function is based on historical demand and deviations for each day as well as planned inventory and service levels. Finally, Ledman and Groh [22] develop production planning rules considering demand mean, variability and collection schemes. This paper introduces concepts that had not been previously considered, such as different collection policies.…”

A computer planning model for blood platelet production and distribution

“…On the regional level, Ledman and Groh [9] considered the problem of determining production quantities of platelets for the American Red Cross Washington Region Blood Center, which supplied 60 hospitals with almost 60,000 units of platelets per year in 1984. Based on daily decisions for platelet production to maintain a blood center inventory of "mean plus 3 standard deviations" they were able to report outdating reductions from over 20% to less than 3%.…”