*Purpose: There has been increased focus on the logistics of organ transplantation. Stemming from recent policies designed to facilitate broader sharing. Reliable methods of assessing and monitoring potential logistical complexities associated with increased sharing are needed to inform policy making and best practices. While previous studies have leveraged distance or ischemic time as proxies for logistical complexity, assumptions limit the accuracy of the results. Neither distance nor ischemic time reflect challenges with the mode of travel nor procurement or transplant operations. Hence, there have been calls for systematically collecting better logistics data from OPOs; however, there has not been an assessment on the feasibility to mandate organ transplantation logistics data collection.

*Methods: We surveyed 9 OPOs across the United States to assess the feasibility to capture the logistics of organ transplantation for deceased kidney donation across three domains: procurement operations, transit, and transplantation operations.

*Results: Procurement information, such as time of procurement and packing, is readily collected from most OPOs, with the notable exception that only 5 OPOs collected time the organ left the donor operating room (OR). From the transit domain, most OPOs were able identify which courier was transporting the organ, but only 3 OPOs could collect key time-stamps associated with organ transit. Most OPOS (6 or more) were unable to provide details about transplant operations, such as OR time, associated with organ transplant and important to overall cold ischemic time.

*Conclusions: There needs to be a recognition that OPOs collect some data about organ transit, but few details about key time stamps, ultimate delivery, and OR time. While it is possible these data could improve the ability to gain insight into organ transit logistics, it will require a proof of concept project to capture logistics data to understand the results of the study.

« Back to 2020 American Transplant Congress