Nicklaus Children's Hospital’s Helen & Jacob Shaham Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute Awarded FACT Accreditation

Published on: 09/16/2024

Nicklaus Children's Hospital has once again received internationally recognized accreditation by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT).

FACT is an accrediting body for hospitals and medical institutions offering stem cell transplants and indicates the accredited institution has met the most rigorous standards in every aspect of stem cell therapy. This covers the entire spectrum of stem cell therapy, from clinical care to donor management, cell collection, processing, storage, transportation, administration, and cell release. FACT-JACIE Standards are defined by leading experts based on the latest knowledge of the field of cellular therapy transplantation.

As South Florida's first and most experienced care provider for children requiring blood or bone marrow transplants, Nicklaus Children's Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program (BMT), part of the Helen & Jacob Shaham Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute, received its original FACT accreditation in 2003 and has continued to meet FACT's rigorous standards over the last 21 years.

The program has surpassed expected outcomes for patients receiving allogeneic (donor tissue) transplants, attaining an overall 93 percent survival rate by the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR). Since its inception in 1991, the BMT program has performed over 400 transplants.

"We are proud to be a long-standing FACT Accredited program which speaks to the level of care and standards our cellular therapy experts possess," said Dr. Jorge Galvez-Silva, Medical Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Nicklaus Children's Hospital. "At Nicklaus Children's we have an unwavering dedication to providing exceptional care to our patients and families so that no child has to leave the state of Florida for treatment.

Nicklaus Children's Hospital Blood and Marrow Transplant Program is a Children's Oncology Group (COG) accredited center for transplants, a member of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium (PBMTC) as well as the International Blood and Marrow Transplant Registry (IBMTR).

About FACT

In December 1994, the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT) merged their Standards into a single document covering all aspects of hematopoietic cell therapy (collection, processing, and transplantation). The two societies established FACT in order to develop a voluntary Inspection and Accreditation Program based on the joint Standards. FACT promotes quality medical and laboratory practice of cellular therapy through its peer-developed standards and voluntary inspection and accreditation program.

In 2006, FACT, in collaboration with the Joint Accreditation Committee-ISCT & EBMT (JACIE), developed international standards in the field of cellular therapy.  JACIE was founded by the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT), the two leading scientific organizations involved with cellular transplantation in Europe.

Since 2007, FACT accreditation has been used in determining the U.S. News & World Report rankings of transplant centers for the "America's Best Hospitals" and "America's Best Children's Hospitals" list.

The FACT Inspection and Accreditation Program was developed by Dr. Phyllis Warkentin, Chief Medical Officer of FACT, the FACT Board of Directors, as well as the ISCT and ASBMT Regulatory and Standards Committees.  The first edition of the FACT Standards was published in September 1996, and the first inspections began in September of 1997 resulting in the first program being awarded accreditation in 1998.

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