Donor Action: An International Initiative to Alleviate Organ Shortage

Abstract

Context

Donor Action, an international initiative to alleviate organ shortage, provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art methodology that helps critical care units develop a tailor-made approach to optimize donation practices and performance.

Objective

To report the impact of the Donor Action methodology on organ donation rates in 8 countries (70 critical care units) in North America and Europe.

Design

Baseline data on the clinical potential for donation, staff attitudes, knowledge toward donation, self-reported confidence in performing a range of donation roles, and educational requirements were gathered. These data were analyzed using the Donor Action database and improvement measures were introduced to address identified weaknesses.

Results

Following introduction of the program's improvement measures, which addressed identified weaknesses, donations increased on average by 53% (P=.0017) per country at 1 year. Sustained improvements settled at 70% to 160% increases at 3 years. Although Donor Action is at various stages of implementation in different countries, the number of centers and countries demonstrating an immediate awareness effect is increasing and sustained effects in centers with the longest follow-up promise a significant impact on donation rates as more countries implement this methodology.