Throughout the healthcare and donation community, organizations are on various stages of the collective journey to consistently fulfilling individual organ donation decisions. The Alliance’s National Donation Leadership Council has identified these inconsistent practices in First Person Authorization as one of the key opportunities to improve across the continuum. The initiative is being led by a sub-committee of leaders in the field including Rondi Gelbard, MD, Judith Pepe, MD, Schawnte’ Williams-Taylor, Michelle Reef, Brendan Parent, JD, and Christine Radolovic, and is being led by the Council’s Chair, Katie McKee.
“Further understanding where we all are on this journey will help us to provide and refine the most useful resources, and support each other in fulfilling donation decisions through first-person authorization,” says McKee.
To kick off this initiative, the Alliance is gathering information about current organizational practices and policies surrounding First Person Authorization in order to develop a guide to establish greater uniformity across the country. A national survey is being conducted to garner this input from OPOs and Hospitals where donations occur across the nation. For best research results, open fields have been provided to log responses. Detailed responses, citing specific instances and data where possible, will assist the team to extract the insights. All responses are confidential and will not be shared. Any conclusions from this survey will be presented in aggregate with no identifying factors.
