Blood Usage and Cost Reduction for Blood Preparation Using Type and Screen Method, Mahasarakham Hospital, Thailand

Abstract

The Blood Bank Service Unit, Department of Clinical Pathology, Mahasarakham Hospital, had applied the Type and Screen (T&S) blood preparation method in order to reduce excess blood units, workload and expired blood components. The objective of this study was to compare the cost of T&S method with that of the conventional crossmatch method. It was conducted by assessing blood use in Mahasarakham Hospital during 2013-2016 in selected hospital wards, which included eye-ear-nosethroat, gynecology, surgery, urology, obstetrics, labour room, female and male orthopedics. It was found that during the study, the number of blood units prepared by T&S method during 2013-2016 was in the range of 3,416 - 4,082 units; whereas the crossmatch, the number ranged from 3,149 – 5,756. The ratio of utilization of T&S blood units in the studied wards was in the range of 1.12 – 50.00. The T&S preparation had reduced the crossmatch requirement of 3,362 – 3,930 units or 39.37 – 51.21% of total blood preparation. Calculating from such reduction, the T&S method had saved the cost of baht 504,300 – 589,000, or 23.20-36.46% of the blood preparation expenditure which would have required if the blood was prepared by the crossmatch method. Thus, such approach should be considered for blood collection in patient wards where the blood utilization is less than 50% of the blood preparation. However, blood bank service unit must have sufficient inventory of blood components and ready to use for any unexpected circumstance.