Opportunities for Consistency in Hospitals

• Policies – Achieving uniformity in donation policies and supporting policies that impact donation, like brain death, is a helpful step towards creating a systemized approach to donation. Achieving policy uniformity within systems can be easier, as it is often a goal. Many systems have a policy committee that works to attain uniformity. Connecting with this committee can be helpful in your efforts.
• Donation Committees – A hospital donation committee is an important aspect of a successful donation program. Bringing together leaders of donation committees from across a system allows for learning opportunities, sharing of best practices and streamlining donation processes.
• Education – System-wide education can be a prime opportunity for online and in-person education about donation while reaching multiple facilities. Connecting with the system-level education team and arranging regular communication about donation can lead to system-wide learning opportunities for staff, including nursing orientation, grand rounds, resident education, multidisciplinary in-services and new employee orientation. The Alliance Spotlight Series is a fantastic monthly resource that offers “bite-sized” educational one-pagers on donation-related topics.
• EMR Access – Many hospital systems utilize the same EMR platform, or are working towards this goal. Working with your OPO to permit EMR access at the system level can be less challenging than maintaining access at individual hospitals.
• Data – Comparing donation data for all hospitals within a system can be helpful in drawing attention to high and low performers and encourages the sharing of best practices. Sharing how the system performs overall compared to other systems can also be a helpful motivator.
• Public Awareness – System-wide public relations and communications teams provide the opportunity to engage multiple hospitals in donation awareness opportunities for both internal and external audiences. Some great awareness opportunities include system-wide participation in National Donate Life Month and the HRSA Workplace Partnership for Life Campaign.

Opportunities for OPOs

• Corporate Profile and Organizational Chart – Having points of contact at the system/corporate level is as important as having contacts at each hospital. Corporate-level partners are connected to networks within their system hospitals and can help create streamlined communication and processes. Some key areas to consider are nursing administration, medical services, information technology, security, legal, marketing and public relations, compliance, and education.
• Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) – Creating a single MOU for a system can ensure that the language and definitions are consistent across all hospitals in the system.
• OPO Strategy Meetings – If you have multiple coordinators assigned to hospitals within one system, hold regular meetings to keep all coordinators in the loop and maintain OPO consistency