Hemaptics
Leverage Data to Impact Transfusion Stewardship

When University Hospitals (UH) of Cleveland set out to improve transfusion management across its system, it faced a challenge shared by hospitals nationwide: transfusions are essential and lifesaving, but they are also widely overused, expensive, and sometimes harmful. Although UH saw major opportunities to reduce unnecessary transfusions, it struggled to find a product to impact clinician behavior or provide current, patient-specific insight to drive safer, evidence-based practice.

Rather than accept this gap, UH built its own solution.

The result was HemaLogiX™, a novel analytics platform that evaluates the appropriateness of every transfusion using patient-level variables and evidence-based guidelines. The platform proved so effective inside UH—cutting transfusions by 30–50 percent and generating $55 million in cumulative savings—that UH licensed the technology to a spin-out company, Hemaptics, making the innovation available to health systems nationwide.

“We started with a simple goal: give clinicians the kind of patient-specific insight that actually changes decisions,” says James L. Hill Jr. MD, MBA, CPE, FASA, FACHE, Chief Operating Officer, University Hospitals Parma Medical Center and a founding clinical leader of the project. “Once we saw how powerfully HemaLogiX improved practice at UH, it became clear that other hospitals could benefit in the same way.”

A Patient-Specific Approach Built for Clinical Reality

Traditional transfusion tools rely on static metrics and generic thresholds that miss the complexity of real-world decision-making. By contrast, HemaLogiX integrates more than 80 patient specific data points and applies UH’s proprietary Transfusion Appropriateness Algorithm (TAA) to analyze each transfusion across all four major blood components.

The platform delivers near-real-time insights, presenting information in a dynamic, intuitive dashboard that is updated daily. Clinicians, quality teams, and administrators can drill down to departments, providers, and individual encounters—with specific attribution ensuring transparency and trust.

“Clinicians trust data when it reflects their exact patient,” says Dr. Hill. “HemaLogiX provides that level of context, so the feedback is relevant and actionable.”

Driving Behavior Change Without Interrupting Workflow

One of the reasons HemaLogiX succeeds where other tools fall short is its fit with clinical workflow. Instead of forcing providers to change their practice, the platform illuminates patterns and opportunities that clinicians readily understand and respond to.

“We designed HemaLogiX to bring clarity to a process that’s historically been opaque,” says Ethan Cohen, CEO of Hemaptics. “When clinicians see patient-specific information presented objectively and transparently, they engage with it—and practice naturally improves.”

The platform’s daily, automated analyses surface priority opportunities and highlight trends over time, enabling leaders to hold meaningful, collaborative conversations with providers.
Proven Impact: Lower Cost, Less Waste and Decreased Risk

UH system’s eight-year experience demonstrates the platform’s power:
• 30-50% reduction in transfusions
• $55 million cumulative savings
• 14 percent improved appropriateness
• No increase in adverse outcomes
• Reduced waste

Because transfusions cost 2.5–7 times their acquisition price, even modest improvements generate considerable savings. Every avoided transfusion represents not only a financial benefit, but a safer decision for the patient.

A Platform Built for the Future of Transfusion Management

Hemaptics continues to expand the vision of HemaLogiX, with future generations incorporating decision support at the point of care, broader analytics, and applicability to additional treatments. The company’s founding team reflects a blend of clinical, operational, and technical expertise—including transfusion medicine, anesthesiology, nursing, enterprise analytics, and healthcare software development.

“HemaLogiX gives hospitals the visibility they need to improve patient care,” says Jennifer Dawson, RN, Principal Advisor, System Resource Utilization, University Hospitals. “Every engagement becomes high-value, and every change is grounded in evidence.”

From a Local Challenge to a National Solution

What began as an internal innovation at University Hospitals has evolved into a scalable platform capable of reshaping transfusion management across the country. By transforming complex patient data into clear, actionable insight, Hemaptics is redefining how hospitals think about transfusion safety, cost, and practice variation.