Patient safety
Keeping patients safe
Find alerts, policies and guidance to keep transplant patients safe and reduce the risk for disease transmission here:
Patient safety resources
Disease transmission
PDDTE policy changes – effective 9/1/2016
- Policy notice
- Pathogens of special interest
- FDA-cleared assays, used to determine toxoplasmosis immune status or diagnosis
Other resources
- Zika virus information for organ donation and transplant professionals (7/2016)
- Frequently asked questions about the 2013 PHS guideline
- West Nile Virus risk factors and evaluating potential living donors
- Recognizing central nervous system infections in potential deceased organ donors
- HTLV-1 screening and confirmation in potential donors and reporting potential HTLV-1 infection
- Recognizing seasonal and geographically endemic infections in organ donors; considerations during living donor evaluation
ABO
Other resources
- OPTN policy 5: organ offers, acceptance, and verification (6/2016)
- System changes related to ABO verification policy are now in place (6/2016)
- OPO Pre-Recovery Verification Template (added 6/28/2016)
- ABO Subtyping Organ Donors for Blood Groups A and AB
- Living Donor OR Verification template (revised 5/2017)
- Recipient OR Verification template (revised 5/2017)
- ABO donor recipient compatibility chart (added 4/2016)
- Electronic Medical Record (EMR) suggested data fields (revised 5/2016)
Vessels
Other resources
- Update for OPOs about TransNet labels for extra vessels (12/4/2018)
- OPOs must use sterile internal labels for extra vessels beginning 9/1/2015 (Updated 2/1/2019)
- Policy 16: Organ and Vessel Packaging, Labeling, Shipping, and Storage
- Guidance regarding handling and repackaging vessels
Labels (begin using on Mar. 1, 2021)
- Vessel labels – 2 x 4 (take effect 3/1/2021)
- Vessel labels – 2 x 5 (take effect 3/1/2021)
Effective practices
Root cause analysis
Learn about OPTN Collaborative Improvement Projects, and find tools and learning resources that are helping to make the system stronger on the effective practices page
UNetSM
Enter data on candidates, recipients and donors. If you can’t access the site, your hospital or OPO site administrator can help you.
Important patient safety notices
Transplant programs, OPOs must specify second Patient Safety Contact as of July 25
The secondary contact will be notified if the primary cannot be reached.
Two guidance documents updated
Resources address VCA donation, geographically endemic infections
OPTN Board approves improvements to reporting of potential patient safety events
Process for reporting enhanced, clarified.
Implementation notice: Required reporting of certain patient safety events now in effect
A new policy is now in effect that requires members to report certain patient safety events within 72 hours of becoming aware of the event.
Pre-implementation notice: Required reporting of patient safety events coming
Effective Jan., 10, 2024, OPTN Policy 18.5, will be updated to require members to report certain patient safety events within 72 hours of becoming aware of the event.
Public Comment open from July 27 through Sept. 19, 2023
The OPTN is offering 14 items for review.
Four-year monitoring report for adult heart allocation now available
Latest report shows key measures of adult heart allocation following policy changes implemented in October 2018.
An important message from the MPSC on reducing risk and ensuring patient safety
The Membership and Professional Standards Committee shares opportunities for improvement with OPTN members.