Uninformed regulatory changes risk organ donation system and could cost lives
Key takeaways
- The U.S. system is the best in the world, saving more lives than any other country, but it remains highly delicate.
- At its core, the system is built upon a three-legged stool made up of donor hospitals, transplant centers and organ procurement organizations.
- That s not to say this is a perfect system that shouldn t ever be changed.
Why this matters: political developments that affect policy direction and public trust.
The U.S. system is the best in the world, saving more lives than any other country, but it remains highly delicate. Every donation and transplant performed involves hundreds of professionals working to test, recover, match, transport, and transplant each organ.
At its core, the system is built upon a three-legged stool made up of donor hospitals, transplant centers and organ procurement organizations. Each of these stakeholders are deeply interdependent. If one leg of that stool is destabilized, the entire structure — and the more than 100,000 patients relying on it — will unequivocally suffer.
That s not to say this is a perfect system that shouldn t ever be changed. This system has improved steadily over time as new research, technologies, and best practices become available, are tested and carefully implemented. This deliberate, evidence-based evolution has made organ donation a vital pillar of our nation s healthcare infrastructure and it remains one of the few sectors still led by nonprofit organizations. Organ procurement organizations — the nonprofits responsible for coordinating donations and supporting donor families — are an irreplaceable component of this system that continue to drive its evolution.