The economics of blood transfusion in the 21st century

Abstract

In the coming years, blood banking will face a number of big challenges in which economic analysis may help find the optimal solution. Pressures to curb cost increases without reducing perceived quality will shift the emphasis from excellence to efficiency. The financial incentive structure that allows costly but low effective technologies to be widely adopted will need to be revised and reshaped. This will require introducing regulated competition between blood suppliers and a closer alignment between the decisions on enforcing new safety measures and the economic consequences of the decisions. On the other hand, if blood shortages become more frequent and severe, as predicted by some experts, property rights on human blood will need to be assigned and fairly compensated, what will require resolving first the ethical issue that accompanies remunerated blood donation. Finally, availability at the bedside of an effective and safe blood substitute will help alleviate blood shortages, but may also profoundly disturb the very way blood banks finance their operations.

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