Australian Red Cross Blood Service

Laboratories and hospitals should monitor the waste of blood components and products including reasons for discard.

Review of this information will identify aspects of blood management that could be improved. For example, blood discarded because it could not be returned to inventory due to being stored in non-compliant hospital refrigerators.

Waste due to exceeding the expiry date may indicate that too much inventory is being held.

We have developed the Electronic Returns Information Capture (ERIC) system to record blood and blood product wastage.

Our ERIC system is very quick and simple to use and allows hospitals and laboratories to record the location and the reason for discarding the blood.

ERIC allows us to review wastage patterns and develop a greater understanding about the reasons for blood wastage. We can also supply wastage reports and graphs to your organisation.

Laboratories are encouraged to use ERIC to record waste data so please register to use ERIC.

A number of laboratories and hospitals in Australia have wastage rates of less than 1%.

For metropolitan hospitals with twice-daily deliveries, a wastage rate of less than 3% is readily attainable, however, regional hospitals with less frequent deliveries may have higher wastage rates but this may be acceptable depending on inventory size and logistical difficulties.