Glossary

A basic explanation of organisations involved with blood in Australia. Clicking on the title of an organisation will take you through to their website.

AABB 

AABB is an international association representing individuals and institutions involved in activities related to transfusion and cellular therapies, including transplantation medicine.

Since its inception in 1947, AABB - formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks - has continued to support the highest standards of medical, technical and administrative performance; scientific investigation; and clinical application through standard setting, accreditation, education, advocacy and other activities. The association also is dedicated to increasing public awareness of the importance of voluntary blood donation.

Nearly 2,000 institutions, including community and hospital blood banks, hospital transfusion services and laboratories, and about 8,000 individuals, including physicians, nurses and other health care providers; scientists; administrators; medical technologists; blood donor recruiters; and public relations practitioners, are members of AABB.

The active membership - located in all 50 states and 80 countries - provides direction to the association through its board of directors and more than 30 committees of volunteer professionals.

Australian Council on Healthcare Standards

ACHS is a health care assessment and accreditation provider, dedicated to improving the quality and safety of health care, developing performance measures with industry and deliver quality improvement programs.

ACHS runs the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program (EQuIP), guiding organisations through a four year cycle of self-assessment, organisation-wide Survey and periodic review to meet ACHS standards.

The ACHS undertakes a comprehensive EQuIP standards review and consultation process every four years to ensure the standards remain current, continue to reflect best practice and evidence and are achievable.

With over 300 indicators in total (as at December 2005), the clinical indicator program is the most comprehensive in Australia. It is also the only national clinical indicator program which examines data across a full range of medical disciplines.
    

Australian & New Zealand Society of Blood Transfusion

The Australian & New Zealand Society of Blood Transfusion (ANZSBT) comprises members from diverse scientific, technical and medical backgrounds working within the areas of blood transfusion and transfusion medicine within Australia and New Zealand. The broad aims of the ANZSBT are:

• The advancement of knowledge in blood transfusion and transfusion medicine.
• The promotion of improved standards in the practice of blood transfusion
• The collaboration with international and other regional societies interested in blood
• The promotion of interest in research into blood transfusion and allied subjects
• The formulation of guidelines in key areas of transfusion practice

Formerly the "Australasian Society of Blood Transfusion" (ASBT), the Society changed its name in late 2002.

Blood Matters 

The Blood Matters project commenced in April 2002 with the formation of a Consortium of three organisations. This consortium developed and tested tools and processes to improve transfusion practice in hospitals.

The Blood Matters project was expanded in 2003 to include an additional 12 public hospitals in a Blood Matters Breakthrough Collaborative project, a project methodology developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in the United States. These hospitals further tested and developed transfusion interventions over an 18 month period.

The interventions included:

• seek to improve clinician and patient awareness and knowledge of blood product use,
• improve clinical decision making, and
• enhance the blood administration process by making all successful practical strategies for improvement available to other hospitals in Victoria and Tasmania.

As part of the Blood Matters project, the transfusion nurse role was installed into hospitals. To support those in the role, a Certificate in Transfusion course was developed as part of the Blood Matters Consortium project

BloodSafe 

BloodSafe is a blood transfusion safety and quality improvement collaboration between the South Australian Department of Health, Transfusion Medicine Services at ARCBS and South Australian public and private hospitals and their transfusion service providers. 

BloodSafe staffing and projects include:

• Transfusion nurse consultants in the major public teaching hospitals in the Adelaide metropolitan area
• A transfusion nurse consultant to work with private hospitals
• A nurse educator employed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, to assist with education, resource development and administration/management
• A transfusion medicine scientist to assist with blood management
• Development of on-line learning (e-learning)
• A clinical haematologist

Blood Watch 

Blood Watch is a NSW state-wide transfusion medicine improvement program and its' primary goal is to improve the safety and quality of fresh blood product transfusion in all NSW Public Hospitals.

In keeping with national trends in improvements in transfusion medicine, the Blood Watch program will focus on these six key areas:

• appropriateness of blood component therapy;
• reporting of adverse transfusion related events;
• clinical governance issues;
• accurate costing of transfusion medicine; ongoing education of health care professionals; and
• communication of policy to address supply and demand issues.

The Blood Watch program is supported by all NSW Area Health Services and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe seeks to develop common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals. Work of the Council of Europe in the blood transfusion area started in the 1950s.

The Committees in charge of questions related to blood transfusion are the Committee on Blood Transfusion and Immunohaematology (SP-HM) and the Committee on Quality Assurance in Blood Transfusion Services (SP-R-GS).  

These Committees built the programme on blood transfusion around three major principles: the non-commercialisation of substances of human origin by voluntary and non-remunerated donation, the goal to achieve self-sufficiency and the protection for both the donors and the recipients.

With these objectives in mind, the Council of Europe concentrated on: studying the ethical, legal and organisational aspects of blood transfusion with a view to ensuring quality, increasing availability of blood, avoiding wastage of human substances, ensuring optimal use and analysing the possible ethical and organisational impact of new scientific developments.   

CSL Limited

CSL Bioplasma is the chosen national plasma fractionator of Australia. 

This means that all plasma donated by Australian donors via the ARCBS, goes to CSL for fractionation into products that are then supplied back through the healthcare system under the guidance of the National Blood Authority. CSL also fulfils this function for New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.  

The CSL Group has a combined heritage of outstanding contribution to medicine and human health with more than 90 years experience in the development and manufacture of vaccines and plasma protein biotherapies.

With major facilities in Australia, Germany, Switzerland and the US, CSL has over 9000 employees working in 27 countries.  

Jurisdictional Blood Committee

The Jurisdictional Blood Committee (JBC) is the lynch-pin between governments and the NBA.

It is responsible for all jurisdictional issues relating to the national blood supply, including planning, production, supply, and budgeting. It provides national policy leadership on these matters, advising the Ministerial Council and settling less significant issues as authorised by the Ministerial Council.

The JBC is also the primary body responsible for providing advice and support to Australian Health Ministers Conference (through the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council) on these matters.  

The JBC is also responsible for considering advice from, and providing advice to, the NBA, on matters related to the national blood supply, overseeing the NBA’s role in relation to contracts, and referring proposed changes to the national blood supply for evidence-based evaluation.  

National Association of Testing Authorities

The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) is Australia's national laboratory accreditation authority. NATA accreditation recognises and promotes facilities competent in specific types of testing, measurement, inspection and calibration. 

The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) is Australia's Government-endorsed provider of accreditation for laboratories and similar testing facilities and a peak authority in Australia for the accreditation of inspection bodies.  

NATA plays a key role in Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure, which provides an important mechanism for improving the business efficiency and competitiveness of Australian industry in international and national markets.  

The organisation acts as a peak authority for the accreditation of inspection bodies and offers a range of services, including training courses catering for the needs of laboratories and inspection facilities. 

National Blood Authority

The National Blood Authority (NBA) is an Australian Government statutory agency, established under the National Blood Authority Act 2003 to improve and enhance the management of the Australian blood and plasma product sector at a national level.

The NBA represents the interests of the Australian, state and territory governments, and sits within the Australian Government’s Health and Ageing portfolio.  

The NBA is jointly funded by all governments with the Commonwealth contributing 63% and the States 37%.

The NBA’s job is to ensure that product required by clinicians in available within a cost-effective framework and that product use is optimised.The National Blood Agreement articulates the primary policy of the Australian blood sector, being:

• To provide an adequate, safe, secure and affordable supply of blood products, blood related products and blood related services in Australia
• To promote safe, high quality management and use of blood products, blood related products and blood related services in Australia

• coordinating national demand and supply planning on blood and blood-related products and purchasing those products on behalf of all Australian governments
• negotiating and managing contracts with suppliers of blood and blood-related products to enable the development of sufficient and value-for-money supply and an agreed single national pricing schedule
• implementing an efficient demand-driven system based on evidence and good clinical practice so that the bloody supply system is highly responsive to needs
• working in a collaborative manner with all governments and other relevant parties to ensure that Australia’s blood supply is adequate, safe, secure and affordable
• national contingency planning
• promoting adherence to national safety and quality standards
• developing and implementing national strategies to encourage better use of blood and blood products

National Health and Medical Research Council

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is Australia's peak body for supporting health and medical research; for developing health advice for the Australian community, health professionals and governments; and for providing advice on ethical behaviour in health care and in the conduct of health and medical research. 

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) consolidates within a single national organisation the often independent functions of research funding and development of advice. It brings together and draws upon the resources of all components of the health system, including governments, medical practitioners, nurses and allied health professionals, researchers, teaching and research institutions, public and private program managers, service administrators, community health organisations, social health researchers and consumers.

The functions of the NHMRC come from the statutory obligations conferred by the National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992 

The NHMRC Clinical Practice Guidelines for the use of Blood Components aim to:

• Promote the integration of quality management systems into transfusion practice;
• Reduce the overall number of transfusion-related complications;
• Increase consumer awareness of the benefits and risks of blood component therapy; and
• Conserve a limited resource.

Octapharma

Octapharma, based in Lachen, Switzerland, is one of the largest privately owned plasma products companies in the world and is an independent plasma fractionation specialist.   

Octapharma’s core business is the development, production and sale of plasma derivatives. Octapharma obtains plasma as raw material for its products from approved blood banks and plasma collection centres in Austria, Germany, Sweden and the United States.  

The National Blood Authority (NBA) has recently announced the Standing Offer arrangements for the supply of imported intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) for the next three years.

Octapharma Australia Pty Ltd has been awarded the three year contract for imported IVIg by the NBA, commencing 1 December 2007.

Under the contract, there is a single imported IVIg product - Octagam - for the National Blood Supply.  Octapharma is required to hold three months supply of the product as in-country reserve. Stock must have a minimum shelf-life of 12 months at the time of supply.  The arrangements for supply of imported IVIg through Jurisdictional Direct Orders is currently being finalised by the NBA.  

Therapeutic Goods Administration

The TGA carries out a range of assessment and monitoring activities to ensure therapeutic goods available in Australia are of an acceptable standard with the aim of ensuring that the Australian community has access, within a reasonable time, to therapeutic advances. 

Blood, blood components, plasma derivatives, tissue and cellular products, and tissue and cell based derivatives are regulated under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. 

The TGA regularly audits ARCBS sites, equipment, processes, training, technical master files and products.  

World Health Organization

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.

It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

In the 21st century, health is a shared responsibility, involving equitable access to essential care and collective defence against trans-national threats.