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SRTR announces monitoring changes for January 2022 reporting cycle in response to COVID-19

Published on: Thursday, May 27, 2021

The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) has announced adjustments to transplant program and organ procurement organization (OPO) evaluation metrics for the January 2022 reporting cycle.

At that time, the semi-annual transplant program-specific reports (PSRs) and organ procurement organization (OPO)-specific reports (OSRs) published by the SRTR will be adjusted to carve out the period of March 13, 2020, through June 12, 2020, the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The SRTR previously modified both the January 2021 and the July 2021 reporting cycles in response to the global pandemic.

The SRTR continues to coordinate with the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network’s Membership and Professional Standards Committee (MPSC) about ongoing COVID-related decisions involving PSRs and OSRs that impact data available both for members and the MPSC. The MPSC evaluates and supports OPTN members by providing feedback on and recommendations to improve members’ performance, compliance and quality systems.

The SRTR, under contract from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is charged with evaluating the performance of the nation’s transplant system through the publication of PSRs and OSRs. These reports contain performance metrics covering various time periods. For OPOs, these metrics include eligible death conversion rates and deceased donor organ yield. For transplant programs, they include waitlist mortality rates, transplant rates, organ offer acceptance rates, patient mortality after listing, and 1-month, 1-year, and 3-year post-transplant outcomes, including graft survival and patient survival.

Potential modifications for the January 2022 reporting cycle were considered by the SRTR this spring. Their recommendations were reviewed by HRSA’s Division of Transplantation, which oversees SRTR. HRSA approved these recommendations, which SRTR will implement for the January 2022 reporting cycle.

The changes outlined below will remain in force beyond the January 2022 reporting cycle unless otherwise amended:

  • Post-transplant Outcomes (including 1-month, 1-year, and 3-year graft and patient survival): Evaluation cohorts will exclude transplants performed between March 13, 2020, and June 12, 2020, inclusive of March 13 and June 12. Patients given transplants before March 13, 2020 will have follow-up censored on March 12, 2020. Patients given transplants after June 12, 2020 will resume normal follow-up. Follow-up will not resume for patients given transplants before March 13, 2020 who are alive with function on June 12, 2020; however, this may be reconsidered as SRTR continues to explore moving to a period-prevalent methodology.
    • 1-month and 1-year Patient and Graft Survival Evaluations: For transplants 7/1/2018-3/12/2020, follow-up will continue through 3/12/2020. For transplants 6/13/2020-12/31/2020, follow-up will continue through 6/30/2021.
    • 3-year Patient and Graft Survival Evaluations: For transplants 1/1/2016-6/30/2018, follow-up will continue through 3/12/2020.
  • Waitlist Mortality Rate: Evaluation cohorts will exclude March 13, 2020 through June 12, 2020, inclusive of March 13 and June 12.
    • Days after listing (and before transplant) between 7/1/2019-3/12/2020 and 6/13/2020-6/30/2021.
  • Transplant Rate: Evaluation cohorts will exclude March 13, 2020 through June 12, 2020, inclusive of March 13 and June 12.
    • Candidates on the waitlist 7/1/2019-3/12/2020 and 6/13/2020-6/30/2021.
  • Overall Mortality Rate after Listing: Evaluation cohorts will exclude March 13, 2020 through June 12, 2020, inclusive of March 13 and June 12.
    • Evaluation period: 7/1/2019-3/12/2020 and 6/13/2020-6/30/2021.
  • Offer Acceptance Rate: These evaluations are based on normal reporting cohorts.
    • Offers received 7/1/2020-6/30/2021.
  • Eligible Death Conversion Rate: These evaluations are based on normal reporting cohorts.
    • Eligible deaths 7/1/2020-6/30/2021.
  • Deceased Donor Organ Yield: Deceased donors will be excluded from evaluation during the first quarter of the national emergency.
    • Deceased donors 7/1/2019-3/12/2020 and 6/13/2020-6/30/2021.

These decisions will apply to the evaluations released in the SRTR’s semi-annual PSRs and OSRs scheduled for release in January 2022.

As with the January 2021 and July 2021 reports, SRTR will continue to report descriptive data beyond March 12, 2020 (e.g., waitlist counts, transplant counts, recipient characteristics, donor counts, donor characteristics) but will alter data for performance evaluation metrics, as described above.

 

Refer to this FAQ for more information about the SRTR’s COVID-19-related changes, or email srtr@srtr.org with any questions about the adjustments to PSRs or OSRs.

 

Contact MQFeedback@unos.org with questions about OPTN member monitoring.