Reduction of Platelet Outdating and Shortage by Forecasting Demand With Statistical Learning and Deep Neural Networks: Modeling Study

Abstract

Background Platelets are a valuable and perishable blood product. Managing platelet inventory is a demanding task because of short shelf lives and high variation in daily platelet use patterns. Predicting platelet demand is a promising step toward avoiding obsolescence and shortages and ensuring optimal care. Objective The aim of this study is to forecast platelet demand for a given hospital using both a statistical model and a deep neural network. In addition, we aim to calculate the possible reduction in waste and shortage of platelets using said predictions in a retrospective simulation of the platelet inventory. Methods Predictions of daily platelet demand were made by a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) model and a recurrent neural network (RNN) with long short-term memory (LSTM). Both models used the same set of 81 clinical features. Predictions were passed to a simulation of the blood inventory to calculate the possible reduction in waste and shortage as compared with historical data. Results From January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2018, the waste and shortage rates for platelets were 10.1% and 6.5%, respectively. In simulations of platelet inventory, waste could be lowered to 4.9% with the LASSO and 5% with the RNN, whereas shortages were 2.1% and 1.7% with the LASSO and RNN, respectively. Daily predictions of platelet demand for the next 2 days had mean absolute percent errors of 25.5% (95% CI 24.6%-26.6%) with the LASSO and 26.3% (95% CI 25.3%-27.4%) with the LSTM (P=.01). Predictions for the next 4 days had mean absolute percent errors of 18.1% (95% CI 17.6%-18.6%) with the LASSO and 19.2% (95% CI 18.6%-19.8%) with the LSTM (P<.001). Conclusions Both models allow for predictions of platelet demand with similar and sufficient accuracy to significantly reduce waste and shortage in a retrospective simulation study. The possible improvements in platelet inventory management are roughly equivalent to US $250,000 per year.