Live Donor Champion (LDC) Programs promote the advocacy for living donor transplantation by patients' family members or friends. Hereby, we conducted a prospective 9 month pilot trial of this novel educational intervention that facilitates the separation of advocate from patients in need of liver transplantation (LT).

Methods: Patients accepted for LT and without contraindications for living donors were invited to attend the LDC training session designed to:1- obtain collaborative approach from patients, caregivers and health care team (HCT), 2- develop an environment to promote donation, 3- test the feasibility of this pilot program. The LDC intervention includes a(n): initial face-to-face meeting (focus groups) with a presentation that enhances the clinic experience and knowledge on living donation, b:Personalized education provided by HCT to target all levels of health literacy, c: follow-up phone calls for ongoing education and d: availability of focus videos and video-conference consults (via Skype – Cisco). A control group of 139 end stage liver disease (ESLD) patients were included. Metrics for evaluation of the intervention was established.

Results: From a total of 167 ESLD evaluated in our clinic, 72 ESLD were eligible for enrollment into the UVA LDC (January to September 2015). A total of 57 (79.16%) out of 72 ESLD patients identified a care giver/donor champion (LDC) interested to advocate for them. During this period of time, a total of 72 intakes (67 directed and 5 non-directed donors) were received on behalf of 38 participants (1.76 donors per ESLD patient). Data shows that 56.7 % of LDC participant identified at least one potential living donor, which represents an increase of more than 4 fold (or 474%) the number of intakes for liver donors compared to the control group . Furthermore, the number of completed donor evaluations doubled. We also observed an increase in patient satisfaction and overall understanding of the transplant process with these educational efforts.

Conclusion: Our pilot study demonstrated that LDC Programs improve patient education and LT access to living donation.

CITATION INFORMATION: Maluf D, Sites A, Donovan M, Wang J, Lyster E, Argo C. Live Donor Champion Program: Time to Redefine Living Liver Donation. Am J Transplant. 2016;16 (suppl 3).

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