McCready lab garners peer performance credential

The clinical laboratory at McCready Memorial Hospital has earned another two-year accreditation by a national peer-review association that examines blood banks and other blood services operations.

Stacy Muir, the hospital’s laboratory manager, said the biennial credential is awarded only after an intensive, on-site evaluation by a specially trained team from the AABB, formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks. The Bethesda, MD-based organization issues the accreditation after a thorough review, which looks to affirm the level of medical, technical and administrative performance within the facility meets or exceeds the standards set by the organization.

Muir noted that accreditation is voluntary - not a mandated inspection. Facilities that seek the credential do so because they are committed to continuous improvement, advanced education, innovation and quality.

At McCready Hospital, a safe blood supply and laboratory professionals highly qualified to work with it go hand-in-hand. Patients often need lifesaving transfusions of whole blood after an injury or major surgery, or if they are anemic due to other underlying conditions. People with clotting disorders and patients undergoing chemotherapy often need transfusions of the blood platelets or of fresh frozen plasma.

Some patients might need to have red blood cells removed through therapeutic phlebotomy – one of the oldest medical practices once known by a more colorful term -- “blood letting.” They include people with hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder known as iron overload disease. Left untreated, this may cause osteoporosis, arthritis, cirrhosis, heart disease or diabetes. Persons with polycythemia vera, a condition that causes an elevated red blood cell volume (hematocrit), also need therapeutic phlebotomy.

Another critical procedure involving blood is “typing and cross matching.” McCready laboratory staffers routinely perform this test to assure that blood or blood components that patients may receive will be compatible with their individual blood types. In 2008, nearly 300 cross matches were performed, with 190 units transfused to 85 recipients. In addition, 26 therapeutic phlebotomies were performed.

AABB accreditation assures McCready patients that the hospital's lab professionals are skilled in such procedures.