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Increasing organ donation: a successful new concept

Background. Organ donation rates nationally have changed little in the last 15 years, despite a growing waiting list. About 6000 patients die each year for lack of a donated organ. South Carolina’s organ procurement organization, LifePoint, recently restructured itself in an effort to increase donation and transplantation rates. The main change was division of the procurement coordinator position into five new positions. A unique innovation was the creation of a bereavement counseling and education service to provide families of potential donors emotional support and education regarding brain death and the value of transplantation. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed data of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and LifePoint’s in-house databases, covering the period from 1997 to 2001. Results. From 1997 to 2001, the donation rate within LifePoint’s service area increased from 18.2 to 33.6 donors per million of population (83%), and transplantation rate increased from 54.8 to 108.6 transplants per million of population (97%), while the national rates were virtually unchanged (P <0.01 and P <0.001, respectively). Conclusions. Division of procurement function into several separate positions, including family bereavement counseling and education, can substantially increase donation and transplantation rates. If these innovations could be effectively adapted by other organ procurement organizations, the number of patients nationally who die on waiting lists could be substantially reduced.