A Stock and Flow Model of the U.S. Blood Supply

• Activity Number: 640
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 5, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Risk Analysis
• Author(s): Arianna Simonetti*+ and Mark Walderhaug
• Companies: FDA and FDA
• Keywords: U.S. Blood Supply ; Stock and Flow Model

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that patients transfused with blood preserved more than 14 days after donation may have worse medical outcomes than those who received more recently collected blood. According to current US FDA guidelines, donated blood can be stored up to 42 days. The typical policy is to use the oldest stored blood first (First-In-First-Out or FIFO) to minimize expiration of blood. We developed a stochastic stock and flow simulation model to investigate the impact on the U.S. blood supply of using more recent blood instead of FIFO. Simulation results show that using blood units randomly selected in ages of 34-41, 27-41, and 13-41 days reduces the predicted steady state level of the blood supply to 9%, 23% and 51%, respectively, compared to FIFO. Our results suggest that deviations from FIFO significantly reduce the steady state level of the blood supply.