According to the lung allocation policy in place in the US since 2005, lungs from adolescent donors (age 12 to 17) are preferentially offered to adolescent candidates; if there are no suitable adolescent candidates in the location
donation service area, the organ is offered to a local candidate aged 0 to 11 years.
The proposal recommends ending the practice of "payback" kidney offers owed when a local transplant area accepts a very well-matched kidney offer from a different local
donation service area.
The statistical model for OPO monitoring now will be "risk adjusted, meaning the statistical expectations will be calculated according to the specific characteristics of the donors in the OPO's
donation service area compared to similar donor characteristics nationwide.
*Three awards will help teams of organ procurement organizations and hospitals from the same
donation service area (DSA) coordinate and implement strategies to increase donation.
The donation rate will allow CMS to assess an OPO's conversion rate of potential donors to actual donors, which allows it to determine how an OPO has performed in regard to the donor potential (the number of eligible deaths) in its own
donation service area (DSA).
The purpose of the program "is to provide support to teams of OPOs and hospitals in the same
donation service area (DSA) to implement and better coordinate strategies for increasing their rates of organ donation and consequently, the number of lives saved through transplantation.
One of the "special focus" chapters featured in the new report examines various ways to measure organ donation rates by
donation service area, which has implications for improving overall rates of organ donation.
Confusing an organization (OPO) with a geographic area (
Donation Service Area or even an OPO Service Area) is not helpful for the reader and provides a disservice to the OPO community.
Many other large hospitals, clustered in certain
donation service areas (DSAs) also have average donation rates that are well above the national average.
*A total of 26
Donation Service Areas (DSAs) achieved the goal of having at least 10% of total donors come from DCD in 2006.
Initiating and Increasing DCD in
Donation Service Areas (DSA)