To determine the cost of expanding blood product operations, the concept of marginal cost must be used. This article reports the development and implementation of a method of costing increases in collecting plasma using apheresis operations. The model takes into account the fact that certain resource inputs--notably, direct labor and machines--increase in discrete steps rather than in a continuous manner. To address this fact, a stepwise cost analysis function was developed, which related operating costs to the volume of apheresis collections. This function was used to predict the marginal costs of potential increases in the supply of plasma at a blood center in Canada. Differences were noted in the cost of plasma in Canada and the United States, much of which could be attributed to different standards regarding the volume of plasma per collection and to differences in pricing materials.

Blood Banks↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Linking mortality data with hospital morbidity data--a pilot study.

Record linkage is becoming an increasingly important technique in moni toring health outcomes. In this study we wought to examine the feasibility of linking mortality data held by the Registry of Birth, Deaths and Marriages with the Patient Master Index (PMI) at St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, in order to document deaths soon after hospital discharge. Linkage was carried out using demographic details. Registry data required extensive editing and formatting prior to being matched with the PMI. 86.2% of cases identified by the computer algorithm were actual cases. Mortality data are an important source of information on health outcome but a process is needed to make them more usable. We have described one such method and suggested where the process could have been streamlined. The use of unique identifiers would have facilitated the matching process, curtailing several processing steps.

Death Certificates↗