Researchers identified standards to increase Organ donors

More than 117,000 people awaiting a lifesaving organ transplant across the country. There are 58 Organ Procurement Organizations (OPO). These Organizations responsible for recovering and distributing organs and tissues for life-saving and life-enhancing transplants.

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Each OPO to serve a specific geographic area. Also works with the transplant centers in their area to match donors with recipients. These OPOs work very hard to identify as many organ donors as possible to help save these lives.

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In partnership with ORGANIZE a non for profit organization in New York. Organizations like The Bridgespan Group a global nonprofit organization that collaborates with mission-driven leaders, and Gift of Life Donor Program an OPO supported the research. All these organizations serves the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Evaluated the metrics which leverages health data to end the organ donor shortage by applying smarter technologies. Utilizing social media, building more creative partnerships, and advocating for data-driven policies.

Two new metrics, evaluating donation percentage, percentage of deceased-donors

In this study, researchers utilized national data on inpatient deaths in the United States. Estimate the potential supply of deceased organ donors, and used these data, in combination with State Inpatient Databases (SIDs). Moreover, to develop new metrics of OPO performance that better reflect the true deceased donor supply in each geographic area.

The research team identified potential deceased donors based on specific criteria such as a ventilated inpatient death of a patient 75 years or younger, without multi-organ system failure, sepsis, or cancer, and whose cause of death was consistent with organ donation which includes neurologic determination of death (DNDD) or circulatory determination of death (DCDD). To validate their estimates of a potential deceased donor in administrative data, the team compared their approximations to patient-level data from two large OPOs in order to determine the potential for donation.

Furthermore, classification of eligible deaths fail to capture the number of actual donors. It has been nearly impossible to accurately quantify the potential gains in lifesaving transplants with increased organ donation rates across the country.

As a result, researchers agree that a standardized set of metrics will allow for comparisons of OPO performance and donation rates in different regions. This helps to identify areas with best practices implemented in order to improve donation rates.

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Finally, researchers suggest two new metrics, which should be standardized, for measuring OPO performance evaluating donation percentage. The percentage of possible deceased-donors who become actual donors and tracking organs transplanted per possible donor. Ultimately, the need to standardize the way possible donors are identified.