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
Go to UNOS Connect and sign in to access all webinar recordings. UNOS Connect is your resource for educational webinars for transplant professionals.
- ABO typing and subtyping training module available (UNetSM login required) (9/2016)
- ABO verification in the OR video (5/2016)
- ABO webinar recording: Compliance with upcoming changes (3/2016)
- ABO webinar recording (12/2015)
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
- Update for OPOs about TransNet labels for extra vessels (12/4/2018)
- Updated vessel labels – 2 x 4 (8/1/2018)
- Updated vessel labels – 2 x 5 (8/1/2018)
- 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
- FAQs
Effective practices
You can find the following three effective communication videos on UNOS Connect. Just open the course catalog and select the Patient Safety category.
- Preventing hemodilution errors
- Preventing organ discard
- Proactively averting errors
Root cause analysis
UNetSM
Use this application to 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
Recall notice affects Sodium chloride vials
A manufacturer of retail drugs has issued a voluntary recall of a product used in recovery and preparation of donor lungs.
Recall notice affects IV solutions
ICU Medical Inc. has issued a voluntary recall for four specified lots of intravenous sodium chloride solutions and one specified lot of intravenous dextrose solution due to the potential for flexible container leaks.
Keep patient safety contact info current
You now have self-serve access through the Secure Enterprise homepage to update your institution’s patient safety contact information. Please take a moment to review your contact listing and update any out-of-date information.
Access UNOS Resources during Patient Safety Awareness Week
Our patient safety series includes topics related to extra vessels handling and storage, proactively averting errors, ABO verification in the OR, hemodilution errors and more.
Notice addresses organ preservation solution
Bridge to Life Ltd. and Waters Medical Systems have issued a field correction for specified lots of Belzer UW Cold Storage Solution and IGL Cold Storage Solution in 2-liter bags.
New learning series combines multiple patient safety resources
Find multiple resources to help you apply the 2013 PHS Guideline recommendations and any OPTN safety-related policy to your current practices.
Important Disease Transmission Reporting Clarification
Transplant professionals need to review the recently updated Notes section of the Pathogens of Special Interest document. If one of your recipients tests positive for HCV after their transplant, and they received an organ from an HCV Ab positive/NAT negative donor,...
Voluntary recall of Cardinal Health brand sterile conventional syringes and needles
International Medsurg Connection (IMC), a wholesale medical supply distributor, has voluntarily recalled its sterile conventional syringes and needles in Cardinal Health private label packaging. Your organization might have received notice from Cardinal Health about this recall. Learn more.
Guidance regarding donor Toxoplasma screening and organ acceptance
Some additional information to help you decide whether to accept organ offers from donors with a positive or pending Toxo screening result. Also information on how best to treat Toxo-negative recipients of organs from Toxo-positive donors.
Special public comment period begins March 27 for guidance document
Document addresses communication with patients regarding increased risk donors; recording of an April 4 webinar is now available.