How do we use smart blood refrigerators at our hospitals in North America?

Abstract

Background: Rapid, reliable, and safe access to blood products remains a persistent operational challenge in transfusion medicine, particularly in high-acuity and geographically dispersed clinical environments. Traditional centralized blood bank workflows may contribute to delays, increased laboratory workload, and risks associated with blood component transportation and storage. Smart blood refrigerators have emerged as an important strategy to support decentralized storage, controlled product access, and enhanced traceability; however, published data describing real-world implementation strategies and operational variability remain limited.

Study design and methods: To characterize real-world adoption and use, we conducted a multi-institutional survey of North American institutions utilizing BloodTrack-integrated smart blood refrigerators. Survey findings were supplemented by targeted follow-up interviews representing a range of operational models and use cases.

Results: Survey responses demonstrated substantial variability in deployment models, clinical workflows, and blood component storage practices. Smart refrigerators supported a wide range of transfusion service functions across diverse clinical environments, reflecting differing institutional, operational, and patient-care priorities. Commonly reported benefits included shorter time to transfusion, improved workflow efficiency, enhanced traceability, reduced staffing burden, and support for patient-specific blood product selection. Reported barriers primarily involved informatics integration, labeling workflows, serologic eligibility constraints, and training considerations.

Conclusion: These findings illustrate how smart blood refrigerators are used across diverse transfusion service environments, highlighting the operational flexibility of these systems and providing practical insights for institutions seeking to implement, optimize, or expand smart refrigerator-supported transfusion workflows.