Integration of Publicly Reported Center Outcomes into Standards and Accreditation: The FACT Model

Abstract The rapid evolution of Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT), coupled with diverse outcomes associated with heterogeneous groups of patients, led to the formation of two important organizations early in the development of the field: the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) and the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). These organizations have addressed two of the nine elements identified by the National Quality Strategy (NQS) [1] for achieving better health care, more affordable care, and healthy people and communities: first, a registry that promotes improvement of care and, second, accreditation based on quality standards. More recently, a federally-mandated database in the United States addresses the third element of the NQS: public reporting of treatment results. This paper describes the current process by which FACT incorporates patient outcomes reported by the CIBMTR into standards for accreditation, the requirements for accredited programs whose performance is below expected outcomes to maintain accreditation, and preliminary findings in assessing corrective action plans intended to improve outcomes.