Judy Norcia, vice president of quality systems, Florida Blood Services, St. Petersburg, FL

Judy Norcia, an ASQ member since 1996, works for Florida Blood Services (FBS) at its corporate headquarters in St. Petersburg, FL. There, she is the vice president of quality systems. She earned her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Alabama. Additionally, she graduated from Druid City Hospital School of Medical Technology in Tuscaloosa, AL, and Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation Hospital in New Orleans. Norcia is currently pursuing a master of management and leadership degree from Warren National University.

She is a certified as a medical technologist and specialist in blood bank technology
by the American Society of College Pathologists, and is an ASQ certified quality auditor and an assessor for the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB). Norcia is a past president of the Florida Association of Blood Banks (FABB), served on AABB and FABB committees, authored a chapter on quality for an AABB published book and is a speaker at local, national and international meetings.

Norcia’s first position in a quality department was as a director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs at FBS—where she is still employed 26 years later. Prior to her time at FBS, she worked in the diagnostics division of Pfizer in Groton, CT.

As a result of the merger between three blood centers, Norcia’s role at FBS was to bring together the processes and FDA licenses of the three centers into one. “This was not only a challenge to me, but to the FDA as well, as this appeared to be a “first” for the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Norcia said. “The collection and provision of blood products is regulated by the FDA as both a drug and a biologic, which means we must adhere to good manufacturing practices applicable to both.”

Blood products have a short shelf life—some as short as five days. Each unit of blood must undergo a vast array of laboratory testing before it can be made available for patient use, including tests for HIV, hepatitis, West Nile virus and syphilis.

“As a not-for-profit healthcare provider, we are challenged with offering the latest in testing and technology to provide the public with the safest blood possible, yet the reimbursement arm of the government is not keeping pace,” Norcia said. Transplants, cancer treatments and other advances in healthcare often use a lot of blood. In the last half of the 20th century, WWII veterans were the greatest contributors to the blood supply.

“As we lose these donors, we must find new ways to encourage younger people to become blood donors,” Norcia said, noting that 15% of the nation’s blood supply now comes from high school donors. “There are increasing reasons for deferring donors, while the nationwide need is increasing. We are also facing a workforce shortage of professional staff, just as the needs for staff in healthcare are increasing due to the aging of the baby boomers.”

As FBS has expanded, so has the role of quality. In 2004, Norcia was appointed to the newly created vice president of quality systems, which includes quality assurance, regulatory affairs, corporate training, document control and medical support. Most of her time is spent in strategic planning and project management, such as incorporating additional blood centers into the organization.

Norcia offered some thoughts on quality in healthcare and advice to those new to quality:

“We consider our low hanging fruit to be customer service. The volunteer donor that we are dependent on deserves the best customer service we can offer, as it is more cost effective to retain the loyal donor than to recruit replacement donors.

“The 38 local hospitals and 60 laboratories for whom we provide blood and laboratory testing count on us to provide excellent customer service so that they can meet the needs of the patients they serve. The FBS mission statement is ‘To improve lives by providing quality blood services and exceptional customer service.’

“My advice to anyone new to quality is to realize that process improvement sometimes comes in small increments and that quality is a culture that must be nurtured. When speaking to employees at FBS about quality, I always tell them, ‘Do your job as if you or a member of your family will be receiving the unit of blood you are collecting or testing, because they just might.’ I think this philosophy could be applied to any job.”
 

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