A year ago this month, OPOs were first able to access our brand new Organ Utilization Tool (OUT). This user-friendly, visual display of organ offers to local programs can help you begin a conversation with the transplant centers in your DSA. OUT gives you a monthly workbook created in Tableau that visually illustrates the characteristics and outcomes of organs local centers turned down that were transplanted elsewhere.
Earlier this year, Yvette Chapman (left), STA’s director of transplant center development, gave Holly Miller, UNOS’ business development manager, a glimpse of their OPO’s day-to-day operations and showed Miller how STA uses the tool to strengthen relationships, build trust, identify areas for process improvement and share resources and data.
Southwest Transplant Alliance (STA) and LifeSource gave UNOS the initial feedback that led us to develop this tool and STA has been using it consistently to help reduce their exports, which are currently down an average of 5%.
OUT Features:
- Contains outcomes of the transplanted organs including graft and patient status and survival rates at 6-months and 1-year post-transplant
- Allows you to use dynamic filters to review offers of specific types of organs (DCD, HCV+, etc.)
- Displays most recent 24 months of data on offers from your OPO
- Can be customized to include offers to specific centers outside of your local area.
What OPO customers have to say:
“I needed to take the organ offer and acceptance data out of a complicated spreadsheet and display it in a meaningful way that could help identify improvement opportunities. The UNOS team listened to my needs and what I was trying to accomplish with our transplant center partners. They developed a customized, dynamic tool that’s generated questions and become a conversation starter with our transplant programs. The questions help drive improvement and the improvement leads to more lives saved through the gift of donation and transplantation.”
– Meg Rogers, Director of Transplant Center Relations, LifeSource
“We needed to develop a method to provide centers with this type of outcomes data in order to understand and influence acceptance behavior and increase local organ recovery rates. (The UNOS) team provided the expertise to assist in building a useable format, streamlining the data and delivering a tool that provides a clear picture of the donor and recipient process. Even more impressive is that they truly understand our operations and proactively both recommend and implement improvements in areas that add value.”
– Yvette Chapman, RN, BSN, CCTC, Director, Transplant Center Development, Southwest Transplant Alliance
To learn more about the Organ Utilization Tool and any of UNOS’ business services, visit the UNOS website.
