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Goal 2

Provide equity in access to transplants

Goal 2, equity, includes efforts to better define requirements for multi-organ transplants, to continue the development of the Continuous Distribution policymaking approach, and to ensure diversity in the decision makers on the OPTN Board and Committees.

Resource Allocation Benchmark: 30%

Core activities

Through a consensus-driven and transparent process, the OPTN brings together a group of individuals with diverse backgrounds and professional perspectives to develop equitable allocation policies. The OPTN Board of Directors and advisory committees are comprised of transplant and donation professionals, patients, living donors, and donor and recipient family members who bring varying and unique perspectives to produce policies that are equitable across all patient populations.

UNOS research staff aggregate national OPTN data and analyze trends in transplantation, which allows for the identification of inequities among transplant patient populations.

The OPTN monitors allocation matches to ensure organ allocation policies are followed and fosters public trust in the national transplant network through public communications.

Initiatives
  1. Improve equity in transplant opportunities for multi-organ and single organ candidates.
    • Include measures of multi-organ transplants in transplant hospital metrics.
  2. Implement continuous distribution policy framework in all allocation policies to increase equity and provide more flexible, patient-focused allocation policies.
    • Monitor and evaluate effectiveness of changes to allocation policies.
    • Refine allocation policies to achieve maximum effectiveness towards the goal.
  3. Increase the ability for allocation policies to be dynamic and incorporate changes in faster policy cycles to respond to post-implementation findings.
  4. Examine differences in access to transplant among different ethnic, economic, and geographic groups and develop strategies as indicated to address any identified disparities.
  5. Increase patient involvement throughout the policy development process.
  6. Increase racial, ethnic, and professional diversity on the Board and committees to ensure a variety of perspectives are offered in the policy development process.
    • Review current demographic data for key populations (MDs, transplant program and OPO personnel, patients, donor families, etc.).
    • Evaluate the election process for patient and donor representatives.
    • Improve recruiting and awareness efforts with potential minority participants.
    • Increase diversity in age of board and committee members.
  7. Continually increase the quality of OPTN data collected and explore the use of non-OPTN data to supplement policymaking and research.
Key metrics
  1. Increased equity in access to transplant as measured by UNOS-published equity in access methodology.
  2. Reduction in time from policy project origination to implementation.
  3. The volunteer workforce will reflect the patients and professionals served by the OPTN.
  4. Increase the average number of individuals per cycle participating in the OPTN public comment period.