Children's National Hospital GERMANTOWN, Maryland, United States
Background/Case Studies: To evaluate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) impact on inventory management of red blood cell (RBC) units and staff workload in a transfusion service. Before the RFID system, 4.0-4.3% of RBC units expired yearly on the shelf. In June 2021, we introduced RFID to improve inventory management and workflow. The process begins upon RBC unit receipt. RBC units are tested for ABO/Rh blood type confirmation and are assigned an RFID tag. The tag captures the donor identification number, product code, blood type, expiration date, product volume, and extended antigen phenotype. When a unit is allocated to a patient, it is linked to the medical record number. Staff can then identify a patient’s assigned units. The RFID tag is tracked through retrofitted storage shelves linked to the server. The dashboard shows the current RBC inventory and unit characteristics. This study describes the RFID system’s impact on our RBC inventory and staff effort over 14 months.
Study
Design/Methods: We collected products lost due to outdating (expired on the shelf) or otherwise discarded (partially used products, recorded in mL) daily. We recorded lost RBC products as full units if they expired on the shelf unused. For partial units, we converted the actual volume discarded in milliliters as a portion of an average unit (250 mL). We analyzed RBC usage and loss from June 2021 to October 2022. To measure workflow, we timed inventory management of 5 different staff members of various experience levels before and after the change. IRB approval was not required.
Results/Findings: During the study period, 9337 RBC units were encoded with RFID tags (~666 units per month). Between 2018 and 2022, the amount of RBC units expiring on our shelves decreased from 4% (260/6440) to 0.63% (42/6635). In 2019, the total volume of discarded RBC in mL was 45,160 mL, equivalent to approximately 180 units. By 2022 after implementation of RFID, 17,343 mL of RBC units were discarded, equivalent to 69 units. Average inventory management time before RFID was 12-20 min (standard inventory) and 2-5 min (antigen negative RBCs). Now it takes < 1 minute to assess inventory status and to locate specific RBCs. Conclusions: The implementation of the RFID technology substantially reduced RBC unit loss, particularly for precious O neg units. It improved inventory management and lessened the work burden on staff. Through the new system, we were able to sustain an acceptable par level of inventory even when a shortage of RBC occurred.
Importance of research: With the constant shortages of blood products, this technology provides a new tool for better blood product inventory management, reduce wastage, maximizing product usage, save time and bring efficiency to the blood bank process.
