Blood is a living tissue that is made up of red blood cells, platelets, white blood cells and numerous clotting factors suspended in a fluid called plasma.

Once blood is out of the body system, the clotting factors in the plasma will cause the cellular components to clump together, resulting in blood clotting. Hence, in order to utilize the blood for transfusion, it has to be collected in plasticware with biocompatible anticoagulant solution so as to maintain blood and its cellular components in a viable state.

The rationale of blood component processing technology is to maximize the use of each whole blood donation by processing the blood into various components, each of which can be used individually for separate recipients. By only transfusing the specific blood product required by the patient, the pool of patients benefiting from a single donation is effectively increased.

Blood Processing and Inventory Laboratory's role is to process each unit of whole blood collected from donor into red cell concentrate, platelet concentrate, fresh frozen plasma or cryoprecipitate and fibrin glue.