[From quality assurance to quality management in a blood transfusion center]

Quality assurance favours transfusion safety and quality, and plays a role in restoring the confidence in the agents of the blood transfusion system. To perpetuate such quality processes, the approach should develop toward quality management based on a quality policy, which means staff's involvement and motivation, and continuous evaluation and improvement. Referring to a daily experience, this papers underlines how it is important that the policy be clearly expressed in the quality manual; it also permits to identify some factors that take part in the evolution toward improvement and anticipation of quality.