Blood Inventory Management: An Overview of Theory and Practice

Abstract

Blood Inventory Management has attracted significant interest from the Operations Research profession during the last 15 years. A number of methodological contributions have been made in the areas of inventory theory and combinatoric optimization that can be of use to other products or systems. These contributions include the development of exact and approximate ordering and issuing policies for an inventory system, the analysis of LIFO or multi-product systems, and various forms of distribution scheduling. In addition, many of these results have been implemented, either as decision rules for efficient blood management in a hospital, or as decision support systems for hierarchical planning in a Regional Blood Center. In this paper we attempt a review of the recent Operations Research contributions to blood inventory management theory and practice. Whereas many problems have been solved, others remain open and new ones keep being created with advances in medical technology and practices. Our approach is not to present an exhaustive review of all the literature in the field, but rather to address several important issues from a unified perspective of theory and practice, and point out new areas for further research.health care: blood bank, inventory: perishable items, probability: stochastic model applications

Pathwise Properties and Performance Bounds for a Perishable Inventory System

“…Although the lifetime of a unit of inventory depends on the type of blood product in question, a common thread is that such products cannot be used if they remain in stock for too long. The survey paper by Prastacos (1984) provides an overview of the numerous issues involved in blood inventory management. Other examples of perishable inventories include food products such as meat, milk, and produce.…”

“…In cases where there are significant charges for placing an order, it may be more appropriate to use an s S -type heuristic (see Nahmias 1978). For more discussion of other types of heuristics and extensive reviews of the perishable inventory literature, see Nahmias (1982) or Prastacos (1984). For some of the earliest work in perishable inventory theory, see Van Zyl (1964).…”

An efficient model to improve the performance of platelet inventory of the blood banks

“…Research on the management aspects of the blood supply chain were started in the 1960s, peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s and then dropped off continuously to the present time. In 70s and 80s, many researches were done regarding blood bank management policies [1], and regarding theories of perishable inventories [2]. Thereafter, it shows a decline and experts argue that this was caused by the collapse of funding for studies in the area and in the increasing difficulty of the remaining problems in this area [3].…”

OR and Simulation in Combination for Optimization

“…In the late sixties and seventies of last century, the problem is first analyzed by mathematical analysis of rather simple models that assume zero lead time, stationary demand, and that neglect the existence of different groups of patients, etc., see Nahmias [1982], Prastacos [1984]. More realistic studies use simulation models to gain insights in the performance of base stock policies, see o.a.…”