JACIE and the EBMT grant team are pleased to announce that the EGALiTE (European Group for Accreditation and Liaison of Blood-Tissues and Cells Establishments) project, funded by the European Union’s Health Programme (EU4HEALTH) has completed on time and with all the deliverables successfully achieved. JACIE was one of the project’s beneficiaries and the wider consortium included 25 European organisations from the fields of blood, tissues, and haematopoietic stem cells respectively. JACIE joined other project partners and experts in Venice on 2-3 October 2024 to participate in the first Face-to-Face Training of EGALiTE auditors and to celebrate the success of the project at the dissemination seminar.
The EGALiTE project was born out of the covid-19 pandemic as many organisations involved in activities with Substances of Human Origin (SoHO) saw their activities severely impacted. The pandemic highlighted the lack of resilience of the current arrangements placing organisations under unprecedented stress at local, regional, and national levels. EGALiTE was inspired by the success of prior European initiatives such as the JACIE, EuroGTP II Project, CEUTE (Consortium of European Tissue Establishment) and TAIEX program (Technical Assistance and Information Exchange).
JACIE, together with the BST (Barcelona Tissue Bank), led on Working Package 5 which developed an accreditation scheme, based on JACIE and other existing European accreditation models, along with the associated documents and learning packages. Continuing the collaboration, JACIE was well-represented in delivering the first Face-to-Face training of EGALiTE auditors by Tuula Rintala (EBMT Director of Advocacy and Patient Care) and Carlos Torrico (JACIE Inspector and Operations Manager at the Tissue and Cell Bank of the Blood and Tissue Bank of Catalonia, Spain). Their presentations drew on their vast experience of audit procedures and best practices in finding evidence, interviews, observations and closing meetings.
Other EGALiTE deliverables include a database of contacts which will be used to design sufficiency plans and promote the collaboration among professionals and competent authorities, to ensure an adequate supply SoHO in the different member states; a Technical Assistance Program (TAP) to assist the implementation of good practices and optimization of activities in the different member states and a contingency planning tool to assist the responsible persons in the decision-making process during crisis. A link to the tool/template designed to assist stakeholders in defining contingency plans can be found here: https://egalite.goodtissuepractices.site/
JACIE recently celebrated its 25-year anniversary as a global accreditation body and was happy to share its experience in support of the establishment of a new accreditation program for allied societies.
The next step is sustainability and the EGALITE Coalition, formed by the European Eye Bank (EEBA) and European Association of Tissue and Cell Banking (EATCB) will lead on the operational implementation of this exciting new initiative.
You can find more information on the project’s website https://www.egalite-europe.eu/
and on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egaliteeurope