WVU Cancer Institute’s Blood and Marrow Transplant program receives accreditation renewal

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The WVU Cancer Institute’s Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) program recently earned a renewal accreditation by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). 

WVU’s BMT program, the only one in West Virginia, has been FACT-accredited since 2002 and has been re-accredited every three years since. FACT accreditation is the threshold for excellence in caring for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, or other life-threatening disease or other blood disorders and providing cellular therapy, including bone marrow or cord blood transplant.

The WVU BMT program performs an average of 70 transplants per year and has been designated as a “Center of Excellence” with major third-party payers Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, CIGNA, Humana, Health America, and OPTUM for cost reimbursement.

The voluntary FACT accreditation is based on compliance with the most comprehensive standards in the field, verified by rigorous peer-reviewed inspections. On-site inspections are carried out by a team of inspectors who are qualified by training and experience and perform cellular therapy functions in their daily practice.

Accredited programs have:

• the experience required to understand and provide for the unique needs of hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) transplant patients;
• medical directors and program personnel who meet FACT educational and experience requirements;
• clinical programs that transplant a requisite number of patients annually;
• collection facilities that perform a requisite number of cell collection procedures annually;
• cell transplantation that is performed in accordance with policies for the safe administration of cells as required for optimum patient care;
• processes guided by quality management systems; and
• review, approval, and training requirements to ensure processes are appropriate and that personnel understand the duties required of them.

Founded in 1996, FACT establishes standards for high quality medical and laboratory practice in cellular therapies. FACT is a non-profit corporation co-founded by the International Society for Cellular Therapy and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation for the purposes of voluntary inspection and accreditation in the field of cellular therapy.

More than 90 percent of the transplant programs in the United States are FACT accredited.