41 Past, present, and future of red blood cells remaining. Third, many articles concerned organizational/operational aspects of both blood banks and hospitals (i.e., from inventory models to technological laboratory and clinical prediction tools). While these studies did not state a specific effect on blood demand, they emphasized that these innovations would bring greater (cost) efficiency, reduced wastage, and improved work flows, ultimately resulting in safer and better patient care. Proteomics studies verified that the “omics” fields would bring more understanding into improving RBC storage conditions, which could potentially reduce RBC demand as RBC clearance in patients’ bodies would decrease. A few studies indicated that RBCs could have an alternate function as an effective drug carrier (with some questionability regarding its clearance rate from the body), and one study studied human immunodeficiency virus deactivation in blood, possibly expanding supply. Finally, “combination” studies spoke about a variety of the aforementioned issues with several stating that regardless of the innovations present, human donors will still be needed.51–53
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