Title: Operational effectiveness and quality assurance mechanisms with stochastic demand of blood supply: blood bank case study

Authors: Alan D. Smith

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3099, USA

Abstract: A general overview of various blood products operational effectiveness and related strategies that can be utilised by service providers (in particular, healthcare providers) is presented in the present study. In terms of the massive volumes of blood products, the North American blood centres collect more than eight million units of whole blood, which represents appropriately 50% of the US and Quebec, Canada’s volunteer donor blood supply. A case study of the quality inspection and inventory control concerns of the Central Blood Bank, located in the metropolitan area of Pittsburgh, PA, is presented. Initially, brief introduction to its general operating environment is followed by sections describing its general situation, quality-service initiatives, and followed by a fairly detailed discussion of the practical applications of lessons learned from the case study.

Keywords: blood supply; blood banks; blood products; operational effectiveness; case study; customer behaviour; inventory control; quality assurance; service marketing; stochastic demand; strategy; healthcare providers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEH.2011.044348

International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 2011 Vol.6 No.2/3/4, pp.174 - 191

Published online: 19 Dec 2011 *

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