National collaborative focusing on organ offer acceptance to enhance system efficiency will kick off in person in January 2023
Published on: Monday, January 16, 2023
*Updated Feb. 26, 2023 with details about how to view recorded sessions from the kickoff conference
More than 80 transplant programs from across the country will come together this year to participate in the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Offer Acceptance Collaborative. The largest OPTN collaborative to date, the six-month project has been designed to support OPTN members and enhance system efficiencies through the improvement of offer acceptance practices and processes. Transplant program performance monitoring will begin to consider offer acceptance metrics in July 2023.
The processes involved in accepting organ offers are integral to the transplant system and to saving lives, but organ offer acceptance rates vary across the United States. A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) notes this variation in acceptance practices and sees offer acceptance as a key area for improvement. NASEM has also noted the success of OPTN collaboratives in the donation and transplant community 
and recommends a continued emphasis on sharing of effective practices.
All 83 participating transplant programs have been selected and notified. The project will launch with a day-and-a-half in-person conference to orient participants to the collaborative, scheduled to take place Jan. 31 – Feb. 1, 2023 in Orlando, Fla.
- Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (Chicago)
- Baptist Memorial Hospital – Memphis (Memphis, Tenn.)
- Boston Children’s Hospital (Boston)
- Children’s Hospital of Michigan (Detroit)
- Corewell Health West (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
- Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford (Palo Alto, Ca.)
- M Health Fairview | University of Minnesota Medical Center (Minneapolis)
- MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute (Washington, D.C.)
- Memorial Regional Hospital (Hollywood, Fla.)
- Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (Newark, N.J.)
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago)
- Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (Hershey, Pa.)
- Piedmont Hospital (Atlanta)
- Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center (Spokane, Wash.)
- Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City (Kansas City, Mo.)
- Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (Philadelphia)
- University of Cincinnati Medical Center (Cincinnati)
- Abbott Northwestern Hospital (Minneapolis)
- Advent Health Orlando (Orlando, Fla.)
- Albert Einstein Medical Center (Philadelphia)
- Ascension St. John Hospital (Detroit)
- Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix (Phoenix)
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis)
- Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (Houston)
- California Pacific Medical Center (San Francisco)
- Children’s Hospital Colorado (Aurora, Colo.)
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia)
- ChristianaCare (Newark, Del.)
- Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (Livingston, N.J.)
- Duke University Hospital (Durham, N.C.)
- ECU Health Medical Center (Greenville, N.C.)
- Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital (Hines, Ill.)
- Erlanger Health System (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
- Hackensack University Medical Center (Hackensack, N.J.)
- Henry Ford Health (Detroit)
- Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
- Keck Medicine of USC (Los Angeles)
- Loma Linda University Medical Center (Loma Linda, Calif.)
- Mayo Clinic Hospital of Arizona (Phoenix)
- Mayo Clinic Hospital of Minnesota (Rochester, Minn.)
- Memorial Hermann – TexasMedical Center (Houston)
- Montefiore Medical Center (New York)
- Mount Sinai Medical Center (New York)
- MU Health Care (Columbia, Mo.)
- NewYork-Presbyterian/Weil Cornell Medical Center (New York)
- Ohio State University Medical Center (Columbus, Ohio)
- OSF Healthcare – Saint Francis Medical Center (Peoria, Ill.)
- Parkland Health (Dallas)
- Presbyterian Medical Center (Albuquerque, N.M.)
- Primary Children’s Hospital (Salt Lake City)
- Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital (Greenville, S.C)
- Providence St. Joseph Hospital (Orange, Calif.)
- Rady Children’s Hospital (San Diego)
- Sanford Health – Sanford Broadway Medical Center (Fargo, N.D.)
- SUNY Downstate Medical Center (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
- Temple University Hospital (Philadelphia)
- Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston)
- The Christ Hospital (Cincinnati)
- UC San Diego Health (San Diego)
- UK HealthCare (Lexington, Ky.)
- UMass Memorial Medical Center (Worcester, Mass.)
- University of California San Francisco (San Francisco)
- University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson, Miss.)
- UPMC Harrisburg (Harrisburg, Pa.)
- VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (Pittsburgh)
- Willis-Knighton Health System (Shreveport, La.)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston)
- Children’s of Alabama (Birmingham, Ala.)
- Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (Houston)
- Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.)
- Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Columbus, Ohio)
- Phoenix Children’s Hospital (Phoenix)
- Seattle Children’s Hospital (Seattle)
- Louis Children’s Hospital (St. Louis)
- Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester Medical Center (Rochester, N.Y.)
- UPMC Children’s Hospital (Pittsburgh)
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (Pittsburgh)
- Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital (Camden, N.J.)
- INTEGRIS Health – Baptist Medical Center (Oklahoma City)
- Mayo Clinic Hospital of Florida (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- New York Presbyterian (New York)
- Tampa General Hospital (Tampa, Fla.)
- University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital (Birmingham, Ala.)
In-person kickoff to bring community together ahead of improvement work
The kickoff event in Orlando will prepare participants for the six-month improvement phase, which will focus on optimizing responses to organ offers, performing retrospective reviews, and defining and revising acceptance criteria. OPTN performance improvement specialists and subject matter experts will give an overview of the collaborative and provide education about the offer acceptance metric.
The agenda will include sessions on tools and strategies for improvement and will also include time for participants to brainstorm potential improvement projects.
Throughout the project, participants will be guided by OPTN performance improvement specialists in an “all teach, all share, all learn” environment that provides focused time, space and support for collaboration on improvement projects.
The OPTN has developed an effective practices resource on improving offer acceptance.
A virtual option is available to the entire community
While not every transplant program in the country is participating, the OPTN recognizes that as many stakeholders as possible should be able to benefit from the information exchanged at the kickoff event. The entire community will be able to attend some presentations at the in-person event.
Update: View recordings of the virtual sessions
Recorded presentations from the hybrid kickoff event are available in the OPTN Learning Management System (known as UNOS Connect) and offer access to a range of thought leadership on system performance.
Search for the OPTN Offer Acceptance Collaborative Playlist – CEPTCs available
The modules have information about:
- MPSC transplant program performance monitoring, the offer acceptance rate ratio, and OPTN tools to drive improvement.
- Effective practices related to offer acceptance and hear lessons learned from previous collaborative participants.
The OPTN brings collaborative improvement projects to the community
OPTN Collaborative Improvement projects focus on process and performance improvement. They offer another innovative path toward improvement that complements OPTN research, IT and policy development initiatives. While each collaborative is designed with a different aim, they loosely follow the Model for Improvement developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement . Teams use a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach to identify areas of improvement, test interventions, track progress, and implement changes.
Learn more about Collaborative Improvement. For more information about this collaborative, email offeracceptance@unos.org.