Working with deceased donors' family members to improve the donation process experience
There are more people who need a life-saving organ than there are donated organs. To increase the quality and number of organs available for transplant from deceased organ donors, physicians use ‘donor interventions.’
Donor interventions involve things like administering drugs to donors to improve the condition of their organs for the benefit of organ recipients. However, there is limited evidence that these interventions are safe and effective; some may even do more harm than good. To improve donation practices, large trials of donor interventions are needed, but conducting these trials in deceased donation is challenging.
Our long-term goal is to produce guidance on the conduct of randomized trials of donor interventions. As a first step in our program of research, this project addresses important preliminary research questions to ground guideline development.
As part of this project, we aim to partner with deceased donors’ family members to identify key markers of a high-quality donation process, enabling us to later derive outcome measures aimed at improving donation processes for families. As a critical step on the path to transformative research, this project will benefit donors who want to maximize their legacy, families who want to see successful donation, and recipients who will benefit from improved organs.
