Attn: Transplant Centers
We sent the following system notice to UNet users today (Wed. Aug. 12). Please read it carefully if your center needs UNOS to help you update the infectious disease acceptance criteria on your candidate records to reflect that you are NOT willing to accept an organ from a donor who is HBV NAT positive and/or HCV NAT positive.
UNet System Notice – Assistance available regarding recent default changes related to HBV NAT positive and HCV NAT positive screening fields in Waitlist
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Audience
All UNet users, particularly those transplant centers affected by the default change, which now indicates them as being willing to accept an HBV NAT or HCV NAT positive organ for their candidates because they had indicated they were willing to accept antibody positive donors.
At-a-glance
Earlier this week, August 10, 2015, we implemented policy changes related to screening donor organs for infectious diseases. To prepare you for this change we included the following information in our system notice:
- As of today, if your candidate is currently listed as willing to accept a Hepatitis B Core antibody positive organ, then their computer listing will default to them being willing to accept HBV NAT positive organs. If you want to change those answers to “no” you may do so now.
- As of today, if your candidate is currently listed as willing to accept an HCV antibody positive organ, then their computer listing will default to them being willing to accept HCV NAT positive organs. If you want to change those answers to “no” you may do so now.
After we implemented the policy change on Aug. 10, several transplant centers requested that we give them the option to default their entire organ-specific candidate list to “no” for whether they were willing to accept HBV NAT positive organs and/or HCV NAT positive organs. To help you minimize your data entry, you may request a work order to have us change the fields for you. See details below.
Details
- Contact the help desk at [email protected] to make a request and be sure that the individual making the request has center privileges to make changes to a candidate’s record.
- Your request should ask that we change your donor acceptance criteria for all candidates to indicate that you are not willing to accept an HBV NAT or HCV NAT positive organ. You must indicate the specific organ types this change should be applied to.
- To ensure that the help desk has all the information they need to process your work order, use the template below and cut and paste that information into your email.
- Center name:
- Requester name:
- Indicate which program types this applies to (ex. Kidney, liver, thoracic, etc.)
- My center requests that you update the infectious disease acceptance criteria on our candidate records to reflect that we are NOT willing to accept an organ from a donor who is:
- (check if this should be changed) HBV NAT positive
- (check if this should be changed) HCV NAT positive
- If you submit your request by phone at 800-978-4334, make sure you have all the above information readily available.
- We will process your request within three business days. Please remember that during that time period, if your candidate’s response was indicated as “yes” after the August 10th implementation date, that response will remain unchanged until you hear from the Help Desk that they have completed your work order. Remember if you submit this request, we will reset all candidate data to “No”. If you then want a particular candidate to have a “Yes” response, you need to update that patient individually.
Request Deadline
You must submit your request by Sept. 16.
Contacts
- If you have trouble with the new fields or reports in DonorNet or Waitlist, contact UNOS Customer Service (UNet Help Desk) at 800-978-4334.
- If you have any other questions related to this policy change, contact your UNOS regional administrator at 804-782-4800.
