EEBA Program (PDF/3MB) - EEBA - Annual Meeting

STANDARDIZED CODING AND LABELING FOR OCULAR TISSUEJ. Armitage¹, P. Ashford², P.Distler²¹School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol Eye Hospital, UK; ²ICCBBA, California, USAPurpose: Traceability is a key requirement for ocular tissues. Traceability is enhanced whendocumentation of the collection, processing, and distribution of ocular tissues can be performedusing bar codes. However, for bar codes to be useful, they must be globally standardized so thatdisparate computer systems can interpret essential information in the same way. ISBT 128, an existingsystem designed to support traceability of substances of human origin, has been used for blood,cellular therapy products, and tissues around the world. The ISBT 128 system supports globally uniqueidentification for each donation as well as standardized product coding. Adapting it to ocular tissuerequired the development of standardized ocular terminology.Methods: Building a global system for labeling and coding of tissue products follows an organizedprocess. First, terms describing products must be selected and defined through a global consensusprocess. Then, reference tables mapping the terminology to computer codes must be developed.Computer codes from the reference tables must then be formatted into standardized datastructures allowing disparate computer systems to interpret the data. Finally, these data structuresare incorporated into bar codes (or other electronic delivery mechanisms) and utilized on labels.Using an existing standard, such as ISBT 128, for encoding of information not only provides forquicker implementation, it also allows many substances of human origin to utilize the same system.Representatives from Association of Eye Banks of Asia; European Eye Bank Association; Eye BankAssociation of America; Eye Bank Association of Australia and New Zealand; Eye Bank Association ofIndia; Pan American Association of Eye Banks; and ICCBBA, as well as other technical experts, met byteleconference over a period of a year to select and define appropriate terminology. The draft of theterminology was submitted to eye bank societies and the public for comment, revisions were made,and terminology was finalized by the group.Results: An international system for standardized coding and labeling of ocular tissue now exists. Theterminology developed by this consensus process may be used within the ISBT 128 system to labelocular products with standardized bar codes enabling the electronic capture of critical data in thecollection, processing and distribution of products.Conclusions: The Boards of the above organizations confirmed their support for the international useof ISBT 128 in the coding of ocular tissue and encourage Eye Banks to:Adopt this standard terminology for use in communications and in the labeling of ocular tissue grafts;Implement ISBT 128 globally unique donation identification for ocular tissue grafts;Move towards full implementation of ISBT 128 nomenclature, coding, and labeling in accordance withguidance published by the eye bank technical advisory group.Following this process, ISBT 128 computer codes were assigned to various products and may now beused to label ocular tissues.28