Honored to Have Played a Part in Influencing National Policy on Blood Supply Chains

For quite a few years, my research group and I have been very engaged in studying and writing about blood supply chains. Blood is a unique product that is life-saving and that cannot be produced but must be donated.

Our work on blood supply chains is part of our broader work on perishable product supply chains and we even wrote a book on the topic that was published a decade ago.

During this festive time of the year with the holiday season, there are also often blood shortages, and, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was greatly concerned about the shortages. One day after the WHO declared the pandemic, I published my article, "How coronavirus is upsetting the blood supply chain," in The Conversation. The article was reprinted on multiple news sites, from Live Science to Salon. 

I am deeply humbled and honored that my article on blood shortages in the COVID-19 pandemic, has influenced national policy not once, but twice. On March 31, 2023, 22 Attorneys General signed a memo to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, and my article was cited first

The full memorandum can be accessed here.

Therein is also a citation to the April 22, 2020 memo from 20 Attorneys General, including Maura Healey, now our Massachusetts Governor, to the Honorable Admiral Brett Giroir, MD, at that time the Assistant Secretary for Health, with my article also as the first citation.

On May 11, 2023, the FDA finalized individual risk assessment guidelines for blood donation eligibility. 

In my discipline of Operations Research, as well as in Economics, we try to "Do Good" to improve social welfare and well-being. The tools that we use include analytical techniques, mathematical models, research studies, and, of course, education of students. However, as I often state in invited conference talks and seminars that I give,  it is also critical to get results out where they can be applied.

That is why I continue to write essays and OpEds that can reach a broader community, as my article on blood shortages has.

 I am very glad that the American Red Cross has now adopted a more inclusive blood donation policy, following the FDA recommendations.

 More blood centers are following the FDA revised guidelines with this article, appearing just a few days ago on the PBS News Hour, noting other blood centers following suit, including one in the Pacific Northwest. The donors, who can now give blood, are grateful and, I am sure, the recipients are as well.

Media Coverage of Our Blood Supply Chain Research

It has been a very busy time since my article, "Uncertainty in blood supply chains creating challenges for industry," was published in The Conversation last month, and not only since the new semester has begun at the University of Massachusetts Amherst!

The article was reprinted in several publications, including: Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, the LA-based magazine GoodHealth, and even ORMS Today, the magazine of my favorite professional society, INFORMS, made a note of it in the February issue.

Since my article's publication, I have also received numerous emails from around the world, including from researchers and practitioners in the United Kingdom and in Israel, as well as from the United States, and have had extended conversations as well.

In particular, I very much enjoyed speaking with  Dr. Brian White and Jarrian James of Bloodbuy. Dr. White wrote this interesting blogpost: "Bloods and circuits: The RAND Corporation report on the role of technology in maintaining a stable blood supply," which references my article in The Conversation.

The Isenberg School of Management posted this piece by the Isenberg School's terrific Senior Editor, Lou Wigdor, entitled: ``Lessons learned from blood supply chains," which noted my wonderful collaborators on blood supply chain research, who were two of my former doctoral students: Dr. Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College and Dr. Min Yu of the University of Portland. Together, with the "other" Professor Nagurney, we co-authored the book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products, which was published by Springer in 2013.

I also was interviewed by Karen Brown, an award-winning health journalist. You can listen to her  report:   "America's blood economy: Vulnerable to economic trends, health advances"
on New England Public Radio.

The full transcript of the radio segment can be viewed here.

And our research on the topic of blood supply chains in the new economic climate continues. I will be presenting the paper, "Mergers and acquisitions in blood banking systems: A supply chain network approach,"  co-authored with Drs. Masoumi and Yu,  at the IFORS conference in Quebec City. 

Also, Pritha Dutta, a doctoral student in Management Science at the Isenberg School, will be presenting our paper, "Competition for blood donations: A Nash Equilibrium network framework, " 
at the New  England Decision Sciences Institute (NEDSI) Conference, which is being held not far from Amherst, in Springfield, Massachusetts, next month!

My Article on Blood Supply Chain Challenges for The Conversation

In mid December I set out to write an article for The Conversation, which is one of my favorite sites. I was lucky to work with a fabulous Editor, Lynne Anderson.

The article, Uncertainty in blood supply chains creating challenges for industry, is a distillation of some of the research that we have done on blood supply chains at the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School, coupled with updates on the latest economic issues facing the industry. I argue in the article, for example, that supply chain analytics can help in quantifying any synergies associated with mergers and acquisitions in this industry and help in better matching supply with demand.

My article was the top story on Monday in The Conversation and was featured on its homepage. It has been picked up by several news outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle. The article is characterized under Health and Medicine.

I never, ever thought that something I wrote would end up on The Conversation's homepage next to and on the same page as a photo of President-elect Trump but it did so on Monday.

This article has attracted good, high quality attention and I have had the pleasure of getting messages from professionals from various countries highlighting even how blood supply chains are managed there and what kinds of incentives are given to attract donors. Given that during the holiday season and the winter there may be fewer donations, this is quite relevant, although the industry, overall, now has a much lower demand for blood in the US than only a decade ago and one of the reasons is that fewer pints are transfused in many surgeries and new surgical techniques result in less loss of blood in patients.

 I very much enjoyed working with the Editor and in getting the article polished and published and plan on writing other articles for The Conversation in the future.

It was also cool to see the article make the UMass Amherst homepage (and, appropriately, right next to an announcement of an event for a new Master's in Business and Analytics at the Isenberg School!

As operations and analytics supply chain researchers it is important to get the news on the research out to the public. This is one reason that I also blog!

Many thanks to Lynne Anderson of The Conversation for helping us to get the news on our research out!