1. Donor Evaluation Tool: A New Technology Improves Donor Enrolment on ICU.
- Author
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Imbimbo C, Nauwerk M, Cammarota T, Beyeler F, Krügel N, Elmer A, Mueller TF, and Immer F
- Subjects
- Humans, Middle Aged, Male, Female, Aged, Adult, Donor Selection methods, Organ Transplantation, Intensive Care Units, Tissue and Organ Procurement methods, Tissue Donors
- Abstract
Uncertainties on the intensive care unit (ICU) regarding the eligibility of a patient to be a potential deceased organ donor may prevent their referral and enrolment in the pathway for organ donation. Healthcare staff may exclude potential donors for medical reasons, which are no longer applicable. Hence, Swisstransplant implemented a digital donor evaluation tool (DET) in 2021, which allows the local hospital's organ donation coordinator to send a direct request to medical advisors (MA) of the organ procurement organization before excluding potential donors. All 156 requests entered in 2022 were analyzed. 117 patients (75.0%) were primarily accepted by the MA as potential donors. Of those 60 patients (51.3%) became actual organ donors. Main reasons for using the DET were questions regarding malignancies (n = 33, 21.2%), infectious diseases (n = 35, 22.4%) and age/co-morbidities (n = 34, 21.8%). The average age of the actual "DET donor" compared to the regularly enrolled, actual "Non-DET donor" was 65.3 ± 15.8 vs. 56.8 ± 17.5 years, respectively ( p = 0.008). On average 1.9 ± 1.1 organs compared to 3.2 ± 1.3 organs were retrieved from DET vs. Non-DET donors. In summary, this new digital donor evaluation tool supports reporting and facilitates eligibility decisions in uncertain, complex donor cases, potentially increasing the number of organ donations., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Imbimbo, Nauwerk, Cammarota, Beyeler, Krügel, Elmer, Mueller and Immer.)
- Published
- 2024
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