Attn: Transplant Centers
On Aug. 21, we sent the information below to alert transplant centers that we were going to automatically change all HBV NAT positive responses from YES to NO except in certain situations. We have completed that change. See the original notice below for details.
On August 10 we implemented policy changes related to screening donor organs for infectious diseases. As a result, if your candidate was listed as willing to accept a Hepatitis B Core antibody positive organ, then the system also indicated YES for willingness to accept an HBV NAT positive organ. We followed the same approach for HCV antibody positive/HCV NAT organs.
On August 12 we gave you an option to submit a work order to change your entire organ-specific candidate list to answer NO for these fields.
After receiving even more feedback and recognizing potential safety concerns, we reviewed the matter extensively, internally and externally, and chose to make the following changes:
- Early next week, we will automatically change HBV NAT positive responses from YES to NO unless you have already changed the field yourself to NO, or if you set the HBV NAT positive response to YES after August 10. Additionally, your records will not be affected if you had already requested a work order to have your HBV NAT positive responses changed from YES to NO.
- We will not apply this automatic change to the HCV NAT donor acceptance criteria field. However, if you have a significant number of candidate records that require a change to the HCV NAT field, we can do this for you. You need to submit a work order by Sept. 16. See this Transplant Pro article for instructions on how to submit the work order.
We know you are always vigilant regarding infectious disease results but as we work to make this programming change, it would be a good idea to pay even closer attention to these fields. We apologize for any confusion this implementation has caused. If you have any questions or issues about the automatic change, please call 804-782-4800 and ask to speak with your regional administrator.
