Quality assurance and standards for red cells and platelets.

Blood donations vary in composition because of considerable variation in donor cell counts and volume collected. In order to minimize the variation in end products produced, and reduce the likelihood of low quality products, a program called Quality Assurance (QA) is required. Agreement on minimal standards is useful, and a program of quality control (QC) is an important component of QA. However, while QC to ensure compliance with standards is desirable, the objective of manufacturing products of consistently high quality can only be achieved when attention is focused on total process control, self-auditing and the energetic management of errors.