“When offering organs, our OPO goes far down on the match run. We make more offers than most because we use the RUM report in the UNetSM Data Services Portal,” said Lori Markham, Chief Operating Officer of the Midwest Transplant Network. “Before we shut down a particular case involving non-standard donor organs, we want to make sure that the transplant programs willing to accept those organs are given the chance to take them. Using this tool has really helped us with organ placement.”
Lori is referring to the Recovery and Utilization Map (RUM) report, one of the many tools available through the Data Services Portal in UNetSM. UNOS debuted this report at AOPO’s annual meeting in Orlando last June. The initial version only contained data on kidneys but after hearing from the OPO community, UNOS plans to release a version in the spring that also allows you to review data on livers, hearts and lungs.
Built with Tableau Software, the report allows you to view and interact with data in an easily digestible visual format, based on a combination of donor characteristics that you select. For example, you may want to see which DSAs recovered organs from 65-year-old DCD donors. You can narrow it even further by selecting KDPI and certain positive serologies. The map then automatically displays exactly where those organs were recovered and gives you at-a-glance data containing the number of donors recovered, the number of organs recovered and transplanted, and the discard rate. Then based on the same filters you selected, you can easily switch to the Usage tab to see which centers transplant those organs. In addition to selecting the organ characteristics, you also have the ability to view the most recent one year or two years worth of data .
“It’s so easy to use and has really allowed us to see which centers are accepting the harder to place kidneys,” said Lori. “With the difficult cases before, we were relying on guess work or trying to remember a random case. It was basically a shot in the dark and we hoped that we were reaching the right center. Using the RUM report eliminates the guess work.”
Staff at Midwest Transplant Network have a quarterly meeting with their transplant centers. Presenting the RUM report during these meetings and demonstrating its capabilities has proved to be a great communication device. Now many of their transplant centers have started to access the report as well.
Staff at Columbia University and The New York Presbyterian Hospital are also seeing its value. Dr. Jean Emond, their Chief of Transplantation and current president of the ASTS said, “The growing availability of self service tools to evaluate performance of our transplant system is important for research, strategic planning and quality of the system. The RUM reports are very powerful and draw attention to the great variability in performance across the system that should drive optimization.”
This is exactly the type of feedback UNOS was hoping for. UNOS research analyst Read Urban stressed that UNOS wanted to provide the transplant community with a flexible tool that they could use to help improve the placement and transplantation of those difficult to place organs–and one that didn’t burden the user with decision fatigue. “We were deliberate in distilling organ-specific donor characteristics down to a group of filters that would help drive efficient decision making,” said Read.
“We built the RUM report with community collaboration in mind. Feedback from the community on who is using the tool, how you are using it, and what functionality you need to help improve the report is crucial to is success. We want to hear from you.” Email Read at [email protected] to share your experience of interacting with the RUM report.
Anyone from an OPO or transplant center can access the report when they log on to UNet, as long as they have the proper permissions. You’ll find the report under UNet Resources>My Data Services>My Visual Analytics. If you are unable to find the reports, contact your security administrator and ask them to check the data services option at the bottom of the standard security administration page.
A series of webinars available on UNOS Connect will walk you through how to use additional tools available in the Data Services Portal.
