Quality

Every day, Baxter products make the difference between life and death for millions of patients worldwide. The company‘ s reputation and ongoing success depend on the quality of Baxter‘ s products and services. Therefore, uncompromising dedication to quality is a guiding principle of the company's culture and is among its shared values.

Baxter‘ s global quality management system (called "1QSys" for "one quality system") provides a single, global Baxter-wide standard for quality. 1QSys offers a consistent approach to managing quality across the product life cycle, including design, development, manufacturing, sterilization, labeling, packaging, distribution and promotion. 1QSys helps to address the complexities of managing across interconnected businesses, regions and manufacturing operations, enhancing the company's ability to meet quality standards and adapt to changes in a complex regulatory environment.

Baxter regularly evaluates and reviews its quality management system to identify and correct issues that may affect product and service quality, and pursues continuous improvement through a range of data-driven methodologies. One focus is simplifying processes, which increases efficiency and prevents potential quality issues from occurring.

Baxter also assesses its suppliers of raw materials, components and finished goods to track and enhance their performance in this area. After products are launched, the company executes post-market surveillance to monitor the safety, efficacy and quality of products while in use. See Safety for more for more information.

When Baxter identifies a potential quality or safety issue with one of its products or determines that products manufactured or marketed by the company do not meet company specifications, published standards or regulatory requirements, it investigates and takes appropriate preventative and corrective actions. This may include providing notice to the customer of revised labeling, correction of the problem at the customer location, withdrawal of the product from the market and/or other actions. See Safety for detail.

Baxter takes any self-identified quality or safety issues or finding by regulatory authorities very seriously, and establishes comprehensive plans to address the specific findings. As these plans are executed, Baxter also evaluates the identified corrective actions to determine if it might leverage the improvements on a broader basis.