The COVID19 pandemic poses unprecedented stress on the health care system including programs performing allogeneic and autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and cellular therapy such as with CAR T cells. The FACT-JACIE standards require disaster planning within the clinical, collection (apheresis and bone marrow) and processing sections.
Modifications to usual care should be considered within the broader organization and controlled by ongoing quality management systems and other JACIE accreditation requirements. The EBMT-JACIE self-check offers HSCT programmes a framework within which to assess and adapt their critical process and services to minimise the risk of transmission among staff, donors and patients.
The survey uses the SurveyMonkey platform and invites to Principle Investigators (PI) were sent out via the platform over different phases starting in early August. This is an important point because by accessing the survey from the email invitation, the user will automatically receive a copy of their survey response, useful for demonstrating that the centre has performed the exercise. This facility is not available when accessing directly via a link. Therefore, if you are unsure if your centre received the invite, please write to ebmt.covid19.selfcheck@ebmt.org citing the email address of the PI.
The self-check is part of the EBMT's response to the COVID19 pandemic. More general information and resources can be found at www.ebmt.org/covid-19-and-bmt.