With the new changing landscape of haemophilia treatment in Europe, EAHAD, in partnership with the European Haemophilia Consortium, decided not only to continue with the certification project first started in 2013 but also to review and update it in order to reflect the specialised services required to monitor patients who may receive new treatments.
EAHAD will start developing the next phase of European haemophilia centre certification in two steps: first, updating the current guidelines on the certification of European Haemophilia Centres to include monitoring of novel treatment products and second, to establish an audit procedure across European haemophilia centres to improve patients care.
To facilitate this, we are delighted to announce that in October 2020 the EAHAD Certification and Audit of Haemophilia Centres Working Group was formed. The Working Group will work hard to establish and coordinate the audit process across European haemophilia centres.
The Certification and Audit of Haemophilia Centres Working Group’s tentative goals are:
1. To update the current guidelines on the Certification of European Haemophilia Centres to include administration and monitoring of novel treatment products and gene therapy.
2. To collect and analyse information about national haemophilia audit practices and procedures in different countries.
3. To set standards for the auditing of Haemophilia Centres in Europe to improve the quality of patient care.
4. To work in close collaboration with the Gene Therapy Working group to establish the parameters of the Hub and Spoke model.
5. To set up a pilot project to evaluate the feasibility, duration, and cost of implementing audits as a permanent part of the certification process.
6. To establish and coordinate an audit procedure across European haemophilia centres by assessing and improving patient care, creating a culture of quality improvement, and offering education to participants.
The Working Group members are Prof. Ana Boban (co-chair), Dr Fariba Baghaei (co-chair), Prof. Karin Fijn van Draat, Dr Robert Klamroth, Prof. Wolfgang Miesbach, Prof. Flora Peyvandi, Prof. Brian O’Mahony (patient representative), Dr David Stephensen (physiotherapist representative), and Mary Kavanagh (nurse representative). A lab representative will also join.
The Working Group is actively working on goals 1-3.