Organize: to end the organ shortage

I don't know much about this (relatively new) organization, Organize.org,  but I like their slogan: It's hard enough to survive a transplant, people shouldn't have to survive the waiting list too.

And Judd Kessler is their resident economist, so they're off to a good start.

They say: "Organize and its partners are doing whatever we can to register more donors, and are trying to build a system that makes it as easy as possible to do so."

"Organize is committing to fix this.  Here’s how:

• Streamlining the registration process to make it easier to enroll as a donor.
• Creating more entry points to enroll as a donor.
• Building tech solutions for state-registries to share information more easily.
•  Supporting academic research around the registration process, and learning best practices for different audiences.
• Empowering patients and their families to take part of the registration process."

Directed deceased organ donation

Here's a story from Modesto about a relatively rare directed donation of deceased donor organs: Dad selects recipients of Modesto woman’s kidneys after car crash

"The lives of two organ recipients and the father who lost a young daughter are linked by “directed donation,” in which a person chooses recipients for organ donations.

"Nearly 3,000 Californians received organ transplants from 1,279 donors who lost their lives in 2013. Families of about 190 of the donors had at least one specific person in mind to whom they wanted to give an organ. But after considering whether the recipient was on the donor list, was well enough to undergo surgery and was a biological match to the donor, only a quarter of the chosen recipients received the organs they needed.

"In the case of 27-year-old Modestan Stephanie Methvin, both recipients were able to accept a kidney, and both are also from Stanislaus County.

“It is really rare in this case that both folks were able to accept the kidneys,” said Tony Borders, spokesman for the California Transplant Donor Network." 

Organ donor registration in Israel

Judd Kessler and I just got this email from Jacob Lavee (about whom I've written before), with good news that he kindly gave me permission to post:

Dear Al and Judd,

Just a short note to let you know that the Israeli Minister of Health has adopted this week my recommendation to establish by law the modified mandated choice model based upon your work, whereby the issuing or renewal of an ID, passport or driving license will be conditional upon answering the question of becoming a registered donor to which only a positive answer will be given as an option or else the “Continue” button will be selected. It seems that, contrary to my previous worries, the entire registration for these documents is currently being done online and therefore there should be no technical issues to implement this model.

Thank you guys for providing the proof of concept which I cited to the ministerial committee.

This model will be added upon the prioritization model, which is already implemented by law.

Jay
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The work Jay is referring to is a paper, currently out for review at a journal that doesn't like prepublication on the web, "Don’t Take ‘No’ For An Answer: An experiment with actual organ donor registrations," which finds, in a study of the online MA state organ donor registry, that requiring potential donors to choose either "yes" or "no" when asked if they wish to be on the donor registry does not increase registrations, and seems likely to reduce the rate of donations by next of kin when the deceased is unregistered.