A 5-YEAR QUALITY-CONTROL EXPERIENCE CONCERNING HOMOLOGOUS BLOOD COLLECTION

Quality control (QC) of blood collection activities for transfusion is a regulatory requirement. The authors report on their experience in t his field over the past 5 years. In their institution, this QC is base d on both the recording and analyzing of predefined data, as well as t he search for an active collaboration from each person involved in the se activities. QC of medical selection relies on the assessment of sev eral associated criteria: effectiveness of the information given to bl ood donors for recruitment, preparation of the medical interview and e ncouragement to perform regular donations; frequency of donors deferre d after the medical interview; frequency of biological abnormalities d etected at donation; results of the inquiries into the corresponding m edical interviews following adverse transfusion reactions. The quantit ative and qualitative evaluation of blood collection permits assessmen t of the quality of the blood collection program, collection procedure s and directly derived blood products. Quality assessment of facilitie s and equipment is also included in this QC. Results have been improvi ng in recent years, especially regarding medical selection. In particu lar, an increase in the mean donation rate of donors, a decrease in bi ological abnormalities detected at donation and an absence of adverse transfusion reactions attributed after inquiry to an inadequate medica l interview have been noticed. A decrease in both shortage and outdati ng of labile blood products likewise indicates an improvement of blood collection planning. However, this QC reveals deficiencies in the inf ormation given to donors and a lack of analysis of the data specific t o first time donors. In order to further improve the efficiency of QC, these results now require comparison with similar data collected on a nation-wide scale. (C) 1998 Elsevier, Paris.