[Quality control of immunologic testing of blood in the Region of the Americas].

Assuring the best quality in transfusion medicine necessarily involves exercising exhaustive control over the entire system and developing protocols for procedures and techniques, the reagents and equipment used, personnel training, and so on. Additional guarantees can come from adequately organizing the work and perhaps automating processes in order to avoid errors. Another way to avoid errors in the laboratory is to register and continuously analyze the mistakes that do occur, since that makes it necessary to change procedures in order to avoid repeating them. External quality control programs (EQCP) make it possible to perform a periodic overall assessment of the suitability of techniques, reagents, and training of personnel in relation to the validity of the results obtained. By voluntarily participating in an EQCP, the blood center shows its commitment to the quality of care. In the Region of the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization's Immunohematology Quality Control Program has made it possible to objectively quantify the improvement attained in the formative level reached by participating blood banks in the four years the Program has been in operation.