Skip to main content
Log in

Quality assurance in immunogenetics and histocompatibility: experience with EFI Accreditation

  • PRACTITIONER'S REPORT
  • Published:
Accreditation and Quality Assurance Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

 The European Federation for Immunogenetics (EFI) has its own standards for histocompatibility testing. Compared with EN 45001 and ISO Standards, EFI Standards are more detailed, actually stating "what to do" in the laboratory. The decision of Eurotransplant that all its organ transplantation programmes must be EFI-accredited by the year 2000, illustrates the importance of the these standards. It took us 11 months to prepare the EFI questionnaire, describing the main features of our laboratory and how they complied with EFI Standards. After approval of this file, inspection was performed by a team of two peers who routinely worked in an EFI-accredited tissue typing laboratory. The pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical phases were inspected during a one day visit. Furthermore, a checklist was reviewed against the laboratory's documentation system. Within 1 month of reception of the inspection report, we were expected to send a reply listing the corrective actions taken. Upon acknowledgement of the latter, EFI Accreditation was granted, for 1 year. We feel that detailed standards, specifically designed for a certain type of laboratory, offer many advantages.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Received: 15 April 2000 · Accepted: 15 April 2000

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mertens, G., Gielis, M., De Smet, D. et al. Quality assurance in immunogenetics and histocompatibility: experience with EFI Accreditation. Accred Qual Assur 5, 381–382 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s007690000191

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s007690000191

Navigation