Analytical Models to Determine Desirable Blood Acquisition Rates

We consider the problem of strategic planning for availability of blood and related products in the event of a national emergency. We apply the well-known Markov models to determine suitable rates of blood acquisition so as to minimize the amount of blood collected and processed and also to minimize wastage due to short life-time of some blood products. Though there has been extensive work on efficient supply and distribution of blood products in normal circumstances, strategic planning to cope up with shortages during emergencies has not been addressed. As an example of the proposed model, we show how to determine minimum blood acquisition rates that meet a given availability level and how to trade off acquisition rates and maximum amount of blood stored.