Optimizing the cost-effectiveness of quality assurance in transfusion medicine

Although quality assurance efforts have been integrated into many aspects o f American health care, their value has been questioned. They can consume l arge amounts of resources (monetary and/or temporal), calling into question their cost-effectiveness. To improve the yield of quality assurance effort s and limit their consumption of administrative resources, they need to be focused on those aspects of the operation where improvement is needed or wh ere errors are particularly problematic and costly. just as a quality assur ance program needs to define the outcome required of the process being moni tored, the outcome of the quality assurance process needs to be defined at the outset; the simplest possible system should then be designed to capture the necessary data to direct improvement. Although quality assurance effor ts have been documented to yield substantial savings, their real payback is provided through better control of an operation and more complete knowledg e of the status of that operation.