Cost effectiveness of quality assurance in plateletpheresis.
OBJECTIVE
A quality assurance system (QAS) is part of modern blood banking facilities. Quality control of single donor platelet (SDP) concentrates includes the determination of the platelet (PLT) yield and the white blood cell (WBC) contamination. Improvements in modern apheresis technology allow the collection of high PLT yields and leukoreduced products. Double dose SDPs can be split and WBC-reduced products may be labelled as leukodepleted thereby reducing costs.


METHODS
3309 SDPs obtained with the Amicus, AS 104, AS.TEC 204 and MCS + blood cell separators were retrospectively analysed for their PLT yield. SDPs with > or = 4.0 x 10(11) PLTs were considered as double dose SDPs and split. WBCs were determined microscopically in 170 SDPs. SDPs with a leukocyte content < 1.0 x 10(6) were labelled as leukodepleted and no further WBC filtration was recommended.


RESULTS
PLT yield was statistically higher in SDPs from the Amicus device, 84.8% of these products could be split. Double dose concentrates were collected in 22.7% with the MCS + machine and in 4.8% with the AS 104/AS.TEC 204 blood cell separators. The savings for disposables was $150,041 and for infectious disease testing $75,766. After the subtraction of the costs for PLT determinations in all SDPs $215,880 could be saved. WBC contamination was statistically lowest in in-line filtered SDPs from the MCS + device (median 0.29 x 10(5), range 0.22-9.96 x 10(5)) and all of these products were considered as fulfilling the criterion of leukodepeletion so that we were able to save $17,135 for bedside filters. Median WBC content was 0.75 x 10(5) (range 0.35-22.5 x 10(5)) in SDPs from the Amicus and 0.9 x 10(5) (range 0.27-99.8 x 10(5)) in SDPs from the AS 104/AS.TEC 204 devices, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Blood cell separators of the newest generation allow the collection of leukodepleted double dose SDPs. An intensified QAS in plateletpheresis allows the decision whether a product can be split and/or released as leukodepleted. By this means we were able to save a total of $233,015 per year.
Moog
R
R
Institut für Transfusionsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Essen, Germany. rainer.moog@uni-essen.de
Müller
N
N
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005374:Filtration; D005858:Germany; D017721:Hospital Costs; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D010983:Plateletpheresis / Q000191:economics* / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000592:standards; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D012189:Retrospective Studies