Development of quality indicators in the field of blood banking and transfusion medicine in Turkey

As a result of the work initiated by the World Health Organization with the slogan “Safe blood begins with me”, the understanding of quality in blood banking and transfusion medicine has begun to be felt more clearly. In our country, quality studies in transfusion medicine gained momentum with the “Safe blood supply project”. For blood service units, quality has gone beyond the understanding of “write what you do, do what you write” and become a part of the safe blood supply process. The fact that the understanding of the quality management system made its presence felt more intensely created the need for blood service units to express the positive contributions of the quality management system with concrete indicators. Monitoring the processes in transfusion medicine with the quality indicators to be established can be the targeted concrete evidence. Quality indicators are also important for evaluating and comparing the performances of blood service units. There are various studies on establishing quality indicators in transfusion medicine at national and international level. However, quality indicators for transfusion centers were barely mentioned in these studies. There are no standardized quality indicators for transfusion centers at the national level. In our article, ise transfüzyon tıbbı we evaluated the deficiencies in quality indicators in blood banking and transfusion medicine in Turkey. We have developed exemplary quality indicators by making use of international and national studies. We believe that in the future, more comprehensive studies will be carried out and standardized blood banking and transfusion medicine quality indicators approved by the competent authority will