An Analysis of Hospital Blood Bank Whole Blood Inventory Control Policies

A detailed model of a hospital blood bank whole blood inventory system is developed, shown to provide an accurate representation of actual blood bank operations, and analyzed by means of digital computer simulation. The control of hospital blood inventories is examined with primary emphasis on the specification of the most basic and most flexible policy—the desired beginning inventory level policy. The performance of the system is studied graphically in terms of a function which relates the two most important measures of effectiveness—blood shortage and blood outdating—to the inventory level. Less flexible decisions are studied in terms of the shift which they produce in this curve. Numerical results are obtained to indicate the specific effects of a reduction of variability in central blood bank shipments, a reduction of the average age or an extension of the dating period of blood entering the blood bank, the establishment of a minimum inventory level or reorder point, and the addition of a second daily blood order.