How Healthcare Interoperability Supports Organ Donations, Transplants

Advanced interoperability enables healthcare organizations to turn more efficient health data exchange into more effective clinical decision-making. For time-sensitive clinical workflows, new levels of efficiency can significantly reduce time to care. Time plays an outsize role in the organ donation and transplant process.

Successfully matching donors and recipients hinges on the speed of communication between hospitals and organ procurement organizations (OPOs). Digital workflows have the potential to allow providers to notify OPOs of potential donors in seconds rather than minutes, increasing opportunities for matches and successful donation recoveries while reducing administrative demands on caregivers and freeing them to care for donors and their families.

Time for change

A growing number of individuals are waiting for an organ transplant. According to the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), more than 100,000 men, women, and children are on the national transplant waiting list, with another one added every 9 minutes. Despite more than 40,000 transplants being performed in 2021, 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant. With each donor capable of saving 8 lives and benefiting scores more, speeding the process of connecting donors and reducing the chance of missed donations has the potential to effect real change.

Hospitals in the United States participating in Medicare have the responsibility to notify OPOs or third-party designees of potential donors in a timely manner. However, that process still relies heavily on manual workflows and inefficient forms of communication.

“It is usually a telephone conversation between the hospital and the organ procurement organization to share all the necessary information — demographics, admission diagnosis, current condition, and answer any other questions the OPO may have. Calls typically range from 20 to 35 minutes as critical information is literally rekeyed while a clinician, typically a nurse, reads off a computer screen in front of them,” says Katie Kurfirst, Director of Interoperability Strategy at Oracle Cerner.

OPOs must be able to process the information on the donor in order to determine the number and viability of organs for donation. However, the manual exchange of information introduces the possibility of mistakes. Typos, misspellings, and other errors can easily result when information is reentered into the receiver’s system.

Further complicating the process is the nature of OPOs. While advancements in technology can leverage existing electronic forms of notifications, variation in OPO technology impedes prompt communication between the two parties.

“Organ procurement organizations are usually set up regionally,” Kurfirst continues. “While OPOs have an affiliation or are part of a larger network, they are still on disparate technology. Hence, addressing interoperability has become a major goal for improving the organ donation and transplant process.”

However, the pandemic has presented challenges to leveraging new technology and workflows to improve communication between hospitals and OPOs.

“Hospitals have noted that clinicians approached the process the same way for such a long time,” Kurfirst explains. “During COVID, hospital leaders were sensitive to not add net new workflow training given the demands on the healthcare system. Now that COVID is letting up, they are seeing how they make the process more efficient and less burdensome.”

A timely solution

For Cerner Millennium clients who have implemented and adopted the new Organ Donation Notification product, clinicians can initiate an electronic order containing all necessary patient demographic and clinical status information, which is received by the OPO’s system. The OPO returns confirmation of the patient information, completing the notification process. The interoperability between the two electronic systems reduces a 20-minute process down to a matter of minutes or seconds, and it eliminates the potential mistakes made by human data entry.

“Once the order is placed, the clinician can move on to care for other patients while having full confidence the notification has been successfully transmitted. The OPO is aware the hospital has a giving donor present and has the ability to make organs, bones or tissues available for donation,” Kurfirst observes.

Perhaps more importantly, clinicians benefit from using the added time savings to work with donors and their families more closely during an incredibly emotional time.

“We want to make this capability and workflow for notifying OPOs as straightforward and as simple as possible so clinicians can be human and more attentive to the patient and their family during a trying moment,” Kurfirst emphasizes. “At the same time, clinicians can trust that all necessary components of the organ donation and transplant process remain in motion.”

“The implementation is straightforward,” Kurfirst explains. “First, we must ensure the healthcare system wants to engage with the OPO to facilitate these notifications. It is not too hard mobilizing based on the value received, but more a matter of building awareness and finding the right people to engage on both sides to make it happen.”  Once the administration portion is complete, the implementation is forthright, and in three to four months, hospitals can begin leveraging the automated donor referrals technology.

“Cerner continues to facilitate discussions to bring more awareness to OPO capabilities through the Organ Donation Notification product. “To better serve our clients, it has become a priority for us to reach out to and work with all OPO vendors to extend this much-needed capability,” Kurfirst adds.

Additionally, Kurfirst and her team are looking at additional ways that communication and data standards can be brought to bear on the organ donation and transplant process.

“By working together, we can enable more robust data sharing leading to time savings that will increase interest and adoption nationwide,” she concludes.

With the pressure on healthcare organizations to do more with less, increased interoperability can simultaneously reduce the burden on clinicians and pave the way for more timely and successful organ transplants.

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