Yale transplant surgeon David Mulligan, M.D., enumerated his concerns about how a proposed Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rule change on organ procurement organization (OPO) metrics that targets just one part of the system could be “disastrous, especially for patients” in an op-ed published last month in The Hill. In the op-ed, Mulligan pointed out that while the U.S. system is the best in the world and has steadily improved in the last decide, there is more to do. He called for improving the system cooperatively and collectively.
“Our country’s unsurpassed organ donation and transplant system is holistic and must be reviewed and improved as such,” Mulligan said in the September op-ed. “We cannot disrupt a single component of it—especially one as integral as the OPO network—and assume this will lead to improvement. Instead, we must implement system-wide reforms based on accurate data to drive enduring positive change, to make the best even better.”
Read Mulligan’s Sept. 9 op-ed.
Learn about UNOS’ proposed reforms to increase organ transplants and save even more lives.
David Mulligan is professor and section chief of transplantation surgery and immunology at Yale New Haven Hospital. He currently serves as president of the United Network for Organ Sharing and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Boards of Directors.
