Ethical guidelines for creating equitable policies, drafted and circulated to more than 12,000 individuals for public comment, discussed at two public forums, revised accordingly and passed by the Board in June, 1994. The Statement of Principles and Objectives of Equitable Organ Allocation calls policymakers to seek balance among four tenets:
Enhance availability of transplantable organs
Allocate organs based upon medical criteria, striving to give equal consideration to medical utility (i.e., net medical benefit to all transplant patients as a group) and justice (i.e., equity in the distribution of the benefits and burdens among all transplant patients)
Provide transplant candidates reasonable opportunities to be considered for organ offers within comparable time periods, taking into consideration similarities and dissimilarities in medical circumstances as well as technical and logistical factors in organ distribution
Respect autonomy of persons
See also Ethics, Hippocratic Oath, Justice, Utility. (OPTN Glossary May 2021)