An efficient inventory management system for the blood banks in Sri Lanka

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Over the past decades, the requirement for platelets seems to be increasing continuously around the world, while the number of potential donors is decreasing. However, due to its very short life span of just five days, a large volume of platelets expires while they are on the shelves, resulting in unnecessary shortages. Moreover, it is very costly and borrowing platelets from other blood banks with short notice is not feasible. These unexpected shortages may place the life of patients at risk. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to develop an efficient blood inventory management model to reduce platelet shortage while minimizing wastage. METHODS: Currently, the blood banks are managing platelet inventory according to their own methods. As a solution we propose a model to manage the daily supply of platelets by forecasting the daily demand. Considering the past daily demand, the Weighted Moving Average method was used to forecast the future demand. Ten different models were developed and tested to find the optimal solution that minimizes shortages of platelets. These models were tested using 60 days data obtained from two different levels of blood banks; a General and Base Hospital. RESULTS: The study was able to come up with two different inventory management models for the different types of blood banks. The model that best fits the General Hospital blood bank will be able reduce the shortages by 89.37% and, the model that best fits the Base Hospital one will be able reduce the shortages by 100%. CONCLUSIONS: It may be concluded that the same models can be adopted by other blood banks with similar characteristics to manage their blood inventories efficiently.