Modelling of the collections process in the blood supply chain: a literature review

Human blood is a scarce resource and its role in healthcare is fundamental, with donated blood saving the lives of many on a daily basis. The blood supply chain is responsible for the transfer of blood from donor to the recipient, but the availability of such an invaluable resource as human blood is ultimately attributable to the many voluntary donors. Thus, the efficiency of the collection of donated blood is crucial to the downstream effectiveness of the blood supply chain. We provide a detailed review on the use of quantitative methods for the process of blood collection from donors. We describe the functional areas which are appointment scheduling, collection policy, crisis situation, donor demographics, location/clinic planning, staff utilisation and vehicle routing. Furthermore, we analyse the existing literature with regards to methods, modelling objectives and the planning levels such as strategic, tactical and operational. Finally, we break down the articles into whether or not case studies lead to the implementation of the methods in practice. In total, we review 46 relevant publications on the intersection between OR/MS and other disciplines. We use our presented framework to categorise the existing approaches and highlight gaps such as scheduling of both staff and appointments for blood donation clinics

Mathematical modelling to support blood collection for the Welsh Blood Service

Human blood is a scarce resource and its role in healthcare is fundamental, with donated blood saving the lives of many on a daily basis. The blood supply chain is responsible for the transfer of blood from donor to the recipient, but the availability of such an invaluable resource as human blood is ultimately attributable to the many voluntary donors. Thus, the efficiency of the collection of donated blood is crucial to the downstream effectiveness of the blood supply chain. Working in partnership with the Welsh Blood Service, our aim is to create a decision support tool to aid the scheduling process to match supply and demand of blood products, whilst minimising costs and wastage in the system. We present an integer linear programme model that consists of two stages. The first stage schedules mobile blood donation clinics, considering over 300 locations, with the objective to minimise both the number of clinics scheduled within the planning horizon and the amount of blood collected that exceeds the demand. The second stage assigns workers to each scheduled clinic, with the objective of minimising costs such as overtime costs. Both stages of this scheduling model are developed in Python and are solved using PuLP - an open source Python package which utilises COIN-OR CBC solver. Test instances are designed and the experimental results are presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of the two-stage model to improve cost and time efficiencies of the collections process at the Welsh Blood Service, in addition to enabling the matching of supply to demand. Finally, some insights regarding the staffing levels of each region are discusse

Operational research applied to regional healthcare system

In this thesis we focus on optimization and simulation techniques applied to solve strategic, tactical and operational problems rising in the healthcare sector. At first we present three applications to Emilia-Romagna Public Health System (SSR) developed in collaboration with Agenzia Sanitaria e Sociale dell'Emilia-Romagna (ASSR), a regional center for innovation and improvement in health. Agenzia launched a strategic campaign aimed at introducing Operations Research techniques as decision making tools to support technological and organizational innovations. The three applications focus on forecast and fund allocation of medical specialty positions, breast screening program extension and operating theater planning. The case studies exploit the potential of combinatorial optimization, discrete event simulation and system dynamics techniques to solve resource constrained problem arising within Emilia-Romagna territory. We then present an application in collaboration with Dipartimento di Epidemiologia del Lazio that focuses on population demand of service allocation to regional emergency departments. Finally, a simulation-optimization approach, developed in collaboration with INESC TECH center of Porto, to evaluate matching policies for the kidney exchange problem is discussed

Great Northern Newsletter for Management Employees, 1973

A newsletter for management employees of Great Northern Paper Company. This file includes issues for the calendar year 1973 (Volume 12, No. 1 through Volume 12, No. 8.