Invite-only March 2027 conference will culminate in a national Delphi study to produce a stakeholder-driven roadmap for AI implementation across the donation-to-transplant continuum, and the process to help shape it starts with a community survey open now.
As artificial intelligence rapidly gains traction across organ donation and transplantation, The Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance (The Alliance) is launching a national effort to ensure its adoption is guided by evidence, broad stakeholder consensus, and practical implementation strategies rather than fragmented local approaches. On March 15, 2027, immediately preceding the National Transplantation and Donation Management Summit in New Orleans, The Alliance will host a National AI Consensus Conference. This half-day, invitation-only academic meeting will bring together leading experts from across the transplant community to finalize a national implementation roadmap for AI in organ donation and transplantation. The conference will be conducted in partnership with NYU Langone Health, ASTS, AST, AOPO, and NATCO.
“AI is already shaping decisions in donation and transplantation — the question is whether the field shapes it deliberately, together,” said Jennifer Prinz, President and CEO of Donor Alliance and 2025-2026 Board Chair of The Alliance. “This Consensus Conference exists so that the community that will actually use these tools also gets to set the standards for how they’re used.”
Why Now: Closing the Gap Between AI Adoption and AI Governance
AI applications are already emerging across donor identification, organ allocation, biopsy interpretation, risk prediction, workflow optimization, and post-transplant care. Yet implementation remains highly variable, with few shared standards governing evaluation, integration, oversight, or ongoing monitoring. Without coordinated guidance, transplant centers and organ procurement organizations risk inconsistent adoption, inequitable access to AI’s benefits, and missed opportunities to shape the field’s own standards before others do it for them.
The European Society for Organ Transplantation held a similar conference in 2025 and published a position paper in April 2026.
Building the Roadmap: A National Delphi Consensus Study
The conference is the capstone of a national Delphi consensus study, Developing a National Consensus Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Organ Donation and Transplantation — an IRB-approved research initiative led academically by NYU Langone Health, in partnership with the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), the American Society of Transplantation (AST), NATCO, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO), and The Alliance.
“The strength of the Delphi process is that it builds recommendations from broad, real-world expertise rather than a single institutional perspective,” said Macey Levan, JD, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery and Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Director of the NYU Center for Surgical and Transplant Applied Research Qualitative Core, and Co-Chair of The Alliance AI Resource Collaborative. “Each round is designed to test assumptions, surface disagreement, and refine the guidance so that the final recommendations are rigorous, credible, and practical.”
Through several structured survey rounds, expert panelists will work toward at least 80% agreement on pre-implementation requirements, integration strategies, and governance principles across five domains: donor identification and management; organ offer, allocation, and acceptance decision support; AI-assisted biopsy and imaging interpretation, with AI-assisted kidney biopsy interpretation (AIPA) serving as the primary exemplar; pre- and post-transplant risk prediction and monitoring; and governance, ethics, and trust in AI. The final deliverable will be a practical, staged national implementation roadmap, including a detailed AIPA sub-roadmap, with plans to publish the resulting consensus guidelines endorsed by participating organizations.
At the March 15 conference, invited participants will review findings from the Delphi process, refine draft consensus statements through domain-specific breakout discussions, and use live anonymous polling to ratify final recommendations, producing a unified framework to guide AI implementation across transplant centers and OPOs nationwide.
How Attendees Are Chosen
Participation follows a structured, multi-stage academic selection process rather than open registration. It begins with a broad, community survey, now open through August 31, 2026, distributed through ASTS, AST, NATCO, AOPO, and The Alliance to transplant surgeons, nephrologists, hepatologists, pathologists and diagnostic experts, transplant coordinators, OPO leaders and staff, finance and administrative professionals in transplant medicine, clinical informatics and IT professionals, and other transplant experts who are at least 18 years old and English-speaking. The community survey is designed to capture stakeholder perspectives on AI and to identify individuals who may be interested in future study activities. Respondents may choose to provide contact information for possible follow-up.
Findings from the community survey will help inform the expert Delphi process by identifying key issues, concerns, and areas requiring consensus. However, Delphi panelists will not be selected from survey respondents. Instead, panel participants will be identified and invited based on their subject-matter expertise and recommendations from relevant professional societies and associations. We will seek a panel that is geographically and professionally diverse. This independence is a deliberate and essential feature of the Delphi methodology, helping preserve the academic integrity of the process by ensuring that expert selection remains grounded in expertise rather than organizational influence.
“Keeping the selection process independent isn’t a formality — it’s what gives this roadmap credibility,” said Aninda Dutta, Senior Vice President of Data and Organizational Strategy at Donor Network West, and Co-Chair of The Alliance AI Resource Collaborative. “We want this panel to reflect the full range of expertise of this field, both geographically and professionally.”
Selected expert panelists will complete several structured online Delphi rounds through Fall and Winter 2026 before convening at the March 2027 conference.
Get Involved: The Survey Is Open Now
Professionals across the donation and transplantation continuum are encouraged to complete the community survey and help inform a nationally developed roadmap for responsible AI implementation. As the lead academic partner, NYU Langone Health is conducting this research study, on behalf of the AI Resource Collaborative, to gather stakeholder perspectives on the use of AI in organ donation and transplantation.
Participation is voluntary, the online survey takes about 20 minutes, and there are no costs to participate. Completing the survey is not an application for the conference or later Delphi surveys, but it is the essential first step. Additional study details are available in the Study Information Sheet at the survey link.
Eligible participants must be age 18 or older, English-speaking, able to complete an online survey, and work in or have expertise in transplantation, organ donation, or related roles.
The community survey is open now through August 31, 2026. Eligible professionals are encouraged to participate here.
