Performance improvement of medical blood handling for aphaeresis platelet usage

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Medical-use Blood Handling ought to be considered as Supply Chain Management including Donation Centers, Hospitals, and blood consumers so that the Quick Response to the change of blood usages and JIT provision can be accomplished. Among others,Aphaeresis Platelet (AP) is vital few of medical blood areas due to increasing demands on higher quality from medical personnel and patients. It makes the SCM more complicated because of its short life-time and infection-sensitivity. The medical centers and hospitals may incline safety inventory and usage amount of pallets due to a speculation of possible wastes. Hence, a prediction model can contribute greatly to the balance of demand and supply of medical-use blood and avoid the wastes of vital resources such as Aphaeresis Platelet regarding its safety lifecycle. Methods: In order to remedy the negative consequence on the performance of blood provision resulted from this speculation;we need to study the correlations between the characteristics of patients as well as hospitals and the usages of Platelet Concentrated, Aphaeresis Platelet, and Prestorage Leukocyte-reduced Aphaeresis Platelets where the rate of using platelet by patients with cancers play a crucial role in developing the model to estimate the demand quantity on Aphaeresis Platelets. Aiming at this, it is crucial to develop a prediction model based on the correlations between the characteristics of patients, healthcare institutions and of the utilization of various types of AP products. By means of previous knowledge and expert interviews, we have at first set up a research framework, which involves patient characteristics, type of hospitals, utilization (rate) and their relation to derive the forecasting model. After priori-analysis on the data of 6 years, we have at first test the data by means of regression, viz. ARIMA. Further studies by means of ANOVA can be conducted to search for the correlation between patient characteristics and utilization of AP, as well as the donation conditions and blood supply, where the characteristics of cancer. At last, we have done a cross-check on aforementioned data and interpretation of the result. Results: The result of this research shows at first that there is no influence of seasons (time) to the consumption of Aphaeresis Platelet in Taiwan while unexpected incidences such as COVID-19 do influence. As the second, medical institutions of different size and level do have different consuming behaviors to AP and patients under chemical therapies consume the largest portion of platelets, that is, 36.5%. More detailed, 25.92 of the patients with cancer consume platelet concentrated, 45.80% of them takes AP and 63.07% takes Prestorage Leukocyte-reduced Aphaeresis Platelets. The effects of perceived issues and potential development of performance improvement are worthy of further investigation. Conclusions: The result of this research shows at first that there is no influence of seasons (time) to the consumption of AP in Taiwan while unexpected incidences such as COVID-19 do influence. Medical institutions of different size and level do have different consuming behaviors to AP and patients under chemical therapies consume the largest portion of platelets.