ICMS Announces First Participant in Stem Cell Clinic Accreditation Program

March 15, 2011 - PRLog -- The International Cellular Medicine Society (ICMS) publically announced today the first participating clinic in its new Stem Cell Clinic Accreditation Program.  The Society entered into its first, formal agreement with the Regenerative Medicine Institute (RMI) of Tijuana, Mexico, a leading stem cell treatment provider in Latin America.

Under this agreement, RMI will provide an unprecedented level of transparency into its clinical and medical practices. All treatment protocols, as well as patient informed consent and patient candidacy documentation will be reviewed by the institutional review board of the ICMS. “This accreditation process is unique.” says David Audley, Executive Director of the ICMS. “This is the only program to bring global best practice standards to cell based medical clinics. It is an important step for this emerging field of medicine and a critical step for patient safety.”

As part of the accreditation process, the ICMS will be investigating every aspect of the clinics practices, processes, and protocols.  RMI’s patient candidacy protocols, informed consent process, and cell collection, processing, and implantation practices will all be examined for compliance with the ICMS Best Practice Guidelines. Additionally, all RMI patients treated with stem cells will be entered into the ICMS Treatment Registry for outcome and complication tracking.  If, at the end of this rigorous 18 month program, RMI passes all compliance measures, lab audits, and reporting standards, the clinic will receive full accreditation from the ICMS.

“RMI welcomes the opportunity to participate in this program,” says Dr. Javier Lopez, President and CEO of RMI. “Patient safety is the highest priority of all of our physicians and staff.  We have no doubt that our clinic will be a model for others to emulate.”

Regenerative Medicine Institute is based out of Hospital Angeles Tijuana, a fully equipped state-of–the-art private specialties hospital.  The clinic claims to provide high quality chronic disease treatments centered around patient dignity and safety.  Its medical team of board certified specialists provides adipose-derived stem cell therapies to patients.

RMI is the first of a handful of clinics worldwide that have agreed to participate in this accreditation program. The ICMS will be announcing other clinic participants in the coming weeks. A full explanation of the ICMS Accreditation program can be found at the ICMS website.

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About the INTERNATIONAL CELLULAR MEDICINE SOCIETY
The ICMS is a physician guided international 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to patient safety and the protection of the practice of medicine and physician education through the production of global guidelines for the practice of cell based medicine. The society maintains three websites, www.cellmedicinesociety.org, focused on adult stem cell education and awareness for physicians and researchers; www.stemcellwatch.com, a portal for patient education and the collection of complaints against stem cells clinics; and www.cellregistry.org, a re-implantation registry to track the long term outcomes of adult stem cell based procedures and therapies.