What it Means to be AABB Accredited

Accreditation from the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) follows an intensive on-site assessment by specially trained representatives and establishes that the level of medical, technical, and administrative performance within the facility meets or exceeds the standards set by AABB.

The minimum requirements for accreditation of cord blood banks and transfusion services are based primarily on the AABB's "Standards for Cord Blood Services". These standards not only set the level of professional proficiency for cord blood banks and transfusion services in the United States, but also provide the basis of practice for similar facilities around the world.

The AABB demands the highest quality standards from accredited facilities and inspects several areas of quality control during onsite audits that occur every two years. The audit includes, but is not limited to, the following key areas:

Cell processing
Processing tests
Cryopreservation records
Document control
Process control
Inspection and testing
Control of equipment

Corrective and preventive action plans
Training of lab technicians
Statistical techniques
Sample identification and traceability
Verification of cord blood units when released from storage

AABB-accredited facilities have demonstrated outstanding quality control in the above areas. In addition, the AABB validates the accuracy of the laboratory results and claims regarding its samples. For Cord Blood Registry, the AABB has verified that:

Cell recovery is more than 99% of the original mononuclear cell population
Cell recovery after thawing is greater than 90%
Collection methods provide samples that are more than 98% free of contamination
Microbial contamination rate due to processing is less than 1%

Cord Blood Registry is very proud of these results. We believe these are among the highest of all AABB-accredited organizations.