Printer Friendly

Based in Kansas City, Midwest Transplant Network handles organ donations in Kansas and western Missouri. Midwest has been involved with the Collaborative since its inception and has seen astounding results because of the staff's hard work and dedication.

Setting their sights on obtaining a 75 percent donor conversion rate, Jan Finn, associate director of Midwest, acknowledges that the key to Midwest's success this past year has been its emphasis on hospital development. "The feeling in the past was more one-sided; it was an OPO issue, now the hospitals are also invested in making the changes and have more willingness to tackle the programs," said Finn. Along with two fellow organ procurement professionals, Finn placed herself on a hospital collaborative team, working directly with the hospital staff. "This helped us set our goals by knowing what we needed to do to obtain a 75 percent rate."

Finn's OPO has also used ideas from the Collaborative to refine existing protocols. "We now are using a more structured approach to chart reviews. Previously, we had always done monthly reviews, now we're doing them on a weekly basis for the ICU and ERs so we could address things in "real time" if there are issues."

Suggestions:

• Don't give up on things you feel strongly committed to.
• Get buy-in from your staff; this doesn't come without hard work and has to come from the top down. "Your staff has to know that you're willing to do the same things you're asking them to do," states Finn.
• Involve the entire OPO staff, community education and hospital services.
• Enlist help from the hospital CEO.
• Have a physician champion; especially important when you have to bridge barriers with physicians or when difficult issues arise.
• And remember, different things work in different places.

Last December Midwest completed training on "presumptive consent" and has not experienced a decline since January. "This gave staff another tool to bump up consent rates a bit more and increase the number of donors," says Finn. The presumptive consent technique, assuming or presuming consent, is a change from the traditional approach. Instead, you approach every family with the intent of getting a YES. "This is an excellent technique to use when approaching families for opportunities for donation," says Finn. "I remember how one staff member used to always say 'if this consent happens.' Now, she talks as though she has consent. It's not an IF but WHEN it's going to happen. The whole Collaborative experience continues to be exciting!"

2004 Notable Numbers:

• Revitalizing the DCD program increased the number of recovered DCD donors to 28. The most prior to that year was three DCD donors.
• Prior to 2004, the highest number of organ donors was 125, which hadn't been seen since 1998; the average was about 120 per year. In 2004, 154 organ donors were recovered!
• Organ yield also increased -- 2.26 organs were transplanted per DCD donor; 4.35 organs transplanted per standard donor, showing an increase not only in the number of donors, but transplants as well. There were 120 more transplants performed in 2004 compared to 2003.