collection
Featured issues
Innovation
Ideas in action
Predicting the future to help patients today
New tool offers never-before-seen insights on the impact that accepting or declining an organ offer could have on a patient.
How Offer Filters will help more kidney patients, faster
Offer Filters analyzes two years of a program’s accepted organ offers to help get high KDPI kidneys to patients who need them.
Building a new, more flexible system for organ allocation
How UNOS is using multi-criteria decision-making methodologies to build the continuous distribution framework, a more fair and flexible system for organ allocation
Improving DonorNet Mobile together
The new mobile-friendly website was developed in partnership with transplant coordinators, administrators and surgeons from across the country.
Innovating to strengthen the organ transplant system
UNOS Labs tries out new ideas in behavioral research, data science and technology. Our researchers develop innovative solutions to improve the national organ network and increase organ utilization.
An Expedia for organ transplantation: Predicting travel time
A privately funded research project aims to help OPO professionals make more informed decisions about optimal travel routes for procured organs.
UNOS researchers discover a new way to predict kidney utilization rates
UNOS data science manager used natural language processing (NLP) to improve kidney utilization. Learn more about organ placement discoveries.
Creating the first national donor image sharing hub
UNOS has launched a new national donor image sharing hub pilot. Learn more about what this pilot consists of and the importance of donor image sharing.
Improvement
Driving change
OPO partners with Black history museum to increase organ donor registrations
Kia Potts tells us how LifeNet Health and a Richmond-area cultural institution worked together to change lingering misconceptions about organ donation.
Nashville’s Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital West’s focus on quality improvement
Heather Marshall of Ascension Saint Thomas West Hospital on the education and peer support initiative her program helped pilot.
Overcoming the financial obstacles to living donation
The National Living Donor Assistance Center is available to help living donors cover travel expenses, lost wages and other costs.
Building a team, serving a community: Pride at NEDS
New England Donor Services LGBTQIA+ outreach meets the community where they are.
10 things UNOS is doing to get the right organ to the right patient at the right time
New technology, innovative data tools and collaborative research projects conducted by UNOS help drive continuous improvement in getting the right organs to the right patients.
What’s the best way to measure transplant program performance?
MPSC proposed changes to performance monitoring to go out for public comment in August.
Kidney committee leadership discusses increasing geographic equity in access to kidney transplant
A result of two years of public comment and policy development, the new distance-based approach prioritizes patients.
New standards ensure pediatric candidates receive the best care possible
More than 260 pediatric transplant programs meet recently updated requirements designed to meet the specific needs of children
Advancing American kidney health through collaboration
OPTN Kidney Committee chair Vince Casingal, M.D., on the ongoing improvement initiatives to increase kidney utilization.
What’s behind the rise in living organ donation?
Living organ donations have been on the rise in recent years. In this feature story, we explore why.
How OPOs improve performance and increase transplants nationwide
Organ donations can be hard to get, but organ procurement organizations are educating communities to improve donation rates. Learn what they are doing here.
COIIN Results: Increasing the use of high KDPI kidneys
A three-year collaborative improvement pilot project, COIIN, explores new methods of quality monitoring. See how they increased the use of high KDPI kidneys.
Insights
Data & tools
UNOS research: Insights from the American Transplant Congress
“There is so much intellectual capital assembled at UNOS to study and evaluate the transplant system and find ways to improve through research and analytics.”
What are the barriers to wider use of organ perfusion?
Q&A: David Klassen, M.D., on the promise, and challenges to wider use, of normothermic perfusion.
When minutes matter: The issues at stake in organ transportation
A look at the intersecting challenges in organ transportation and a call for government and industry leaders to join the donation and transplant community in finding national-level solutions that ensure donor organs get safely to patients in need.
The ethical implications of continuing living donor transplants during COVID-19
Paper offers rationale and recommendations for continuing living donor transplantation when resources are stretched
Data dashboard monitors equity in access to transplant
Data tools helps monitor trends, support key OPTN goals to provide equity in access.
Trailblazing physician broke barriers to become nation’s first Black female transplant surgeon
Dr. Velma Scantlebury-White, who has performed more than 2,000 transplants in her career, says there have been significant changes in terms of achieving equity access in the allocation system for minority patients, but some issues persist.
KAS increases equity in access to kidney transplantation
Is KAS, the Kidney Allocation System, accomplishing the goals set out for it? Read more from UNOS about what is working and what challenges remain.
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