Improving efficiency of Provincial units of Iranian Blood Transfusion Organizations with

Due to the economical restrictions, blood centers need to detect approaches to improve their efficiency. Improving efficiency in the collection and processing of blood products at blood centers can decrease costs while assuring that demand for blood products is happened. One of these approaches can be allocating resources more effectively Study designs and This study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the efficiency of 31 Provincial units of Iranian Blood Transfusion Organizations (IBTO) to determine to what extent efficiency can be improved. Input variables included Number of blood collection and processing centers (BCPCs), Number of blood collection centers (BCCs), Number of mobile teams(MTs), Population density of province (population per square mile), Number of donor beds and Area of blood transfusion center (BTC). And the output variables were produced Units of Packed cells (PCs), FreshFrozen Plasma (FFP) and platelets (PLTs) for use inside province. Efficiency grades were computed
with DEA linear programming techniques and Provincial units of IBTO characteristics that important affect efficiency determined by principle components analysis (PCA). For two consecutive years, with Number of BCPCs, BCCs, MTs, Population density of province, Number of donor beds and area of BTC as inputs, technical efficiency was (range, 0.39- 1). for two consecutive years, 22 Provincial units of IBTO were efficient (efficiency, = 100%), and 9 were inefficient. Otherwise based on PCA results, Efficiency was mainly affected by Number of BCPCs, BCCs, MTs, Efficiency did not directly relate to Population density of province, Number of donor beds and area of BTC. Conclusions: The major reason of inefficiency was excess allocating resulting from a suboptimal combination of Number of BCPCs, BCCs, and MTs. Further research is required to manage factors affecting efficiency, such as the variation of demand inside and outside the provinces.