title: Donor recruitment and blood collection costs for Red Cross Centers. An investigation of the economies of scale hypothesis.
abstract: This paper presents a statistical analysis of the hypothesis that there are economies of scale in the collection of blood. Based on a national sample of Red Cross collection centers, an analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between total costs of obtaining blood as well as its recruitment and collection components, and explanatory factors such as local costs, mobile units used, and scale of operations. Adjusting for other factors, our results indicate slight diseconomies of scale at all levels of operation: that is, as scale of operations increase, collection costs rise. Only the costs associated with the recruitment and collection functions are examined in this study.
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001782:Blood Donors; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D006801:Humans; D012011:Red Cross; D014481:United States