• Quality improvement: the processes within your organisation will be reviewed by external experts who are experienced in registry operations and in providing blood stem cell products internationally.
• World market acceptance: national health authorities may adopt WMDA as an assurance of the quality of imported blood stem cells. Blood stem cell products from another country may comply with national requirements when originating from a WMDA accredited registry or cord blood bank.
• Visibility in the global Search & Match Service: when physicians select a donor, donors from WMDA certified, qualified and accredited registries are marked with the accreditation logo. This assures physicians that the donor is listed in an organisation that promotes the quality of procedures necessary to obtain, in the shortest possible time, the appropriate quality and quantity of blood stem cells.

• processing incoming requests for access to donors/cord blood units arriving from organisations in other countries;
• facilitating outgoing requests for international donors/cord blood units for patients in the country where the registry resides;
• coordinating the activities of donor, collection and transplant centres and cord blood banks within a country.

Organisations (registries) demonstrate their commitment to comply with WMDA Standards.

Quick references:

• WMDA Standards, amendment January 2021
• January 2021: Amendment
• Guidance (request access by sending an e-mail to mail@wmda.info)

Here, a registry electronically submits a set of written documents that address crucial benchmark WMDA Standards. To become WMDA certified or qualified, an organisation must meet all benchmarked WMDA Standards. The review will focus on the registry’s operations, i.e., how your registry has organised its processes. Trained volunteers review the submission. After receiving its certification or qualification certificate, an organisation is required to perform a mid-cycle surveillance in the second year of a four year cycle. In case the activity of the registry is too low to become WMDA qualified, the organisation will become WMDA certified.

The second step is to become WMDA accredited:

Only WMDA qualified registries can apply for WMDA accreditation. To become WMDA accredited, an organisation must meet all required WMDA Standards and ensure that each step between donor recruitment and donor follow-up after blood stem cell donation is carried out according to internationally accepted standards. Once WMDA accredited, a registry must apply for re-accreditation every four years. After receiving its accreditation certificate, an organisation is required to perform a mid-cycle surveillance in the second year of a four year cycle.

• WMDA Standards, the basis of evaluation
• Requirements for submitting an application {link to Policy: Certification Body Application Requirements And Levels}
• Stepwise progress towards accreditation {link to Policy: Certification Body Application Requirements And Levels}
• Certification agreement listing rights and duties of applicants {link Certification Agreement}
• Evaluation process {link to SOP: Evaluation Activities}
• Procedures for handling complaints and appeals {SOP: complaints and appeals}
• Fees

• you will help organisations to give patients the best possible care;
• you will become an expert on WMDA Standards;
• you will learn new practices and operations from other organisations;
• you can share knowledge and expertise with others;
• you will become part of a network of colleagues;
• you will discover a variety of ways to meet WMDA Standards;
• you will be able to reflect on your own organisation’s practices;
• you will travel internationally for onsite audits; and
• you will learn how to use online tools and resources created for reviewers.

Applicants who wish to become a reviewer must meet certain criteria and be approved by the Accreditation Steering Committee. Once you are accepted as a reviewer, you will have to complete the online training programme within six months. Next, you will be required to participate as a trainee in a document review for a WMDA certification, qualification or WMDA accreditation application. The final step will be for you to perform an onsite (or remote) audit with an experienced reviewer.

After becoming a trained reviewer, you will be asked to assist in one to two reviews a year and will also have to complete online training once a year. Interested? Contact WMDA office and ask for the details.

Certification Body

The aims of the Certification Body are to:

• Promote harmony between worldwide stem cell donor registries and cord blood banks
• Encourage uniformity of practice based on WMDA Standards
• Administer the WMDA accreditation programme.

Three committees within the WMDA Certification Body, WMDA Standards Committee, WMDA Accreditation Committee, and WMDA Accreditation Steering Committee. These three committees report directly to the Board but remain in this Pillar in order to facilitate the exchange information.

Since 2000 the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) is operating an accreditation programme for cord blood banks in collaboration with the NetCord Foundation. The FACT accreditation programme is an opportunity for cord blood banks to show that they comply with internationally accepted standards.

WMDA took over the activities of NetCord Foundation on 1 January 2017. Since then, WMDA has worked with the FACT office to promote the accreditation programme among cord blood banks. The FACT website provides information about the application process for accreditation.