Selecting Hospital Blood Inventory Policies under Seasonal Shortage Using Agent-Based Simulation and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 

Ensuring the availability of blood products during seasonal shortage conditions is challenging due to uncertain supply and demand and the perishable nature of blood products. Hospitals must balance shortages and outdating when selecting inventory strategies. This study develops an agent-based simulation model of a regional blood supply chain that captures interactions among donors, bloodmobiles, blood centers, and hospitals, incorporating stochastic supply and demand, blood age dynamics, cross-matching, and transshipment. Simulation outputs are evaluated using a multi-criteria decision-support framework to compare alternative strategies. Results show that no single policy is universally optimal. The (T, S) policy performs best for platelets, while the EWA-based strategy is more suitable for red blood cells. Sensitivity analysis indicates that key parameters, including reorder levels and shelf life, significantly affect performance. These findings highlight the importance of adopting differentiated inventory strategies and demonstrate the value of integrating simulation with multi-criteria evaluation in healthcare supply chains.