Organ Transplants

More than 10,000 people died waiting for organ transplants during a recent five-year period. Although the technology for organ transplantation has improved dramatically, organ supplies have not kept pace with demand. Federal legislation has attempted to boost supplies of transplant organs and make their allocation more equitable, but patients have little assurance that organs are being distributed fairly. First, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not monitor the allocation practices of organ procurement organizations. Second, some organizations limit the pool of patients to be considered for transplant to a single transplant center. Third, some organizations do not document why good transplant candidates were skipped over. Fourth, despite a policy of the United Network for Organ Sharing that allocation practices should be uniform, compliance with this policy by organ procurement organizations is voluntary. HHS needs to develop federal regulations stipulating appropriate allocation practices and develop a measure of procurement success that would enable it to target technical assistance to less effective organ procurement organizations.