A Computer‐based Blood Inventory and Information System for Hospital Blood Banks as Part of a Regional Blood‐management Program

The feasibility of establishing computerized networks between hospital blood banks and regional blood distribution centers is being tested. A portion of this system is described which serves the individual hospital blood bank directly and eventually will feed its data into the total regional system. Information is entered via a teletypewriter by blood bank personnel. Reports can be generated that can serve as accession, reservation, and transfusion logs, reproduce the blood bank history of a patient or a unit of blood, indicate the status of the entire inventory or a single unit of blood, and highlight units about to outdate. Statistical summaries of various blood bank activities can be derived readily from the data base created. Analysis of a data base created from the blood bank records of two large metropolitan New York hospitals reveals significant differences in the amounts of blood used on the various services (medical, surgical, emergency, special) and for certain major medical conditions (gastrointestinal bleeding, renal dialysis). The probability that units requested actually will be transfused was calculated for one major medical category and a tentative age‐matching policy for the selection of bloods to be reserved was suggested. Attention is called to the necessity of considering standards of compatibility between present and future computer‐based systems for blood banks, that they can be merged into regional networks that will benefit the community, the donor, and the patient‐recipient.