(P-IV-5) Platelet inventory management including real-time dashboards: An overview with preliminary results

Platelets are critical blood products with a short shelf-life of 5 days. Platelet manufacturing and testing after collection may take 2 days; this leaves platelets with a maximum of 3-day shelf-life which might lead transfusion services to retain additional platelet inventory to meet patients’ needs. This often results in an increased rate of outdated platelets (ODPLT). We describe our evolving platelet inventory management process.

Study

Design/Methods:

Our Transfusion Medicine service supports the transfusion needs of a 1290-bed tertiary academic medical center that provides a variety of clinical services and surgeries with different complexities. This translates to a high utilization rate of blood products including platelets. In 2023, our blood bank issued 22,000 platelets and maintained an average daily platelet inventory of 50-80 platelets.

In early 2023, the blood bank experienced frequent platelet inventory shortages. The transfusion medicine service had to increase platelet standing orders and allow flexibility in placing additional platelet orders. This resulted in an increased rate of ODPLT. In July 2023, the new blood bank leadership implemented a stepwise process to balance supply and demand while minimizing the rate of ODPLT with a set target of a maximum of 1 ODPLT per day.

The following measures were implemented:
1. Platelet incubator shelves were labeled with platelet expiration dates, facilitating easy identification and retrieval of platelets based on their remaining shelf life.
2. By optimizing platelet utilization and prioritizing older stock, the need for additional platelet orders was significantly reduced.
3. Platelet ordering was restricted to a select few staff members, ensuring greater oversight and control over inventory management.
4. Improved cooperation with blood suppliers to ensure a more reliable supply chain and timely delivery of platelet products.
5. Utilizing real-time web‑based inventory dashboards for all blood products including platelets that show how close inventory is to crossing thresholds. A new tab was added to display the time to expiration of platelets with the units’ details including ABO. The blood bank displays these dashboards throughout the day on a large monitor as part of daily operations.

Results/Findings:

The rate of ODPLT decreased gradually over the past 12 months reaching our target (Figure A). There was still an increased rate of ODPLT during December and January, though decreased by 50% from the first quarter of the study period, which was attributed to decreased utilization around the holiday season. Efforts are currently being made to develop a machine learning algorithm to predict platelet usage.

Conclusions:

We developed a platelet inventory management process that included web‑based dashboards. This has decreased the rate of ODPLT significantly, thus making platelet management more efficient and decreasing costs.