Quality management system

CEBaP wants to guarantee that all of its researchers work in a uniform and efficient way, with a focus on the quality of our methodology and satisfaction of our internal (Red Cross operational services in need of a specific guideline or systematic review) and external clients (e.g. larger organisations or funding agencies commissioning systematic reviews). However, within our continuously growing and evolving research centre practicing the methodology of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), we experienced the need for more standardization of procedures and processes. We therefore decided to implement a Quality Management System (QMS) based on ISO 9001 standards, and were officially ISO 9001:2015 certified between June 2020 and July 2022, for the development of evidence summaries and systematic reviews.

The process of implementing a QMS in our centre is documented in a paper which can be consulted here (preprint only). In this paper, we explain the rationale for applying this framework to our activities, and which steps we took to prepare for certification. Finally, we describe the benefits of this system for our centre, and discuss its cost-effectiveness.

In July 2022, after 2 years of rigorously implementing the ISO 9001:2015 standards, we decided to modify our QMS and limit it to those elements that work best and are most useful to our research team. Our current QMS is therefore an adapted and more limited version than the one that is fully based on ISO 9001 standards.