In the United States, an organ procurement organization (OPO) is a non-profit organization that is responsible for the evaluation and procurement of deceased-donor organs for organ transplantation. There are 57 such organizations in the United States, [1] each responsible for organ procurement in a specific region, and each a member of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), a federally-mandated network managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) under federal contract. The individual OPOs represent the front line of organ procurement, having direct contact with the donor's hospital and the family of the recently deceased donor. [2] Once the OPO receives authorization for donation from the decedent's family or through first-person authorization (such as a state or national Donor Registry), it works with UNOS to identify the best candidates for the available organs, and coordinates with the surgical team for each organ recipient. [2]
OPOs are also charged with educating the public to increase awareness of and participation in the organ donation process. [1]
All organ procurement organizations in the United States are members, by law, of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (administered by the United Network for Organ Sharing, and most are also members of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO). Many of the OPOs are also members of Donate Life America. Some OPOs are affiliated with hospitals and are not considered independent. [3]
Name | Region served |
---|---|
Legacy Of Hope | Alabama |
Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency | Arkansas |
Carolina Donor Services | North Carolina, Virginia |
Center for Donation and Transplant | Massachusetts, New York, Vermont |
Center for Organ Recovery & Education | New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia |
Donor Alliance | Colorado, Wyoming |
Donor Network of Arizona | Arizona |
Donor Network West | California, Nevada |
Finger Lakes Donor Recovery Network | New York |
Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network | Illinois, Indiana |
Gift of Life Michigan | Michigan |
Gift of Life Donor Program | Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania |
Sierra Donor Services | California |
Indiana Donor Network | Indiana |
DonorConnect | Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming |
Iowa Donor Network | Iowa, Nebraska |
Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates | Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia |
Legacy of Life Hawaii | Hawaii |
Life Center Northwest | Alaska |
Life Choice Donor Services | Connecticut, Massachusetts |
Life Connection of Ohio | Ohio |
LifeAlliance Organ Recovery Agency | Florida |
LifeBanc | Ohio |
LifeCenter Northwest | Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Washington |
LifeCenter Organ Donor Network | Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio |
LifeGift Organ Donation Center | Texas |
LifeLink of Florida | Florida |
LifeLink of Georgia | Georgia, South Carolina |
LifeLink of Puerto Rico | Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands |
LifeNet Health | North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia |
LifePoint | South Carolina |
LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services | Florida |
LifeShare of Oklahoma | Oklahoma |
LifeShare of the Carolinas | North Carolina, South Carolina |
LifeSharing | California |
LifeSource Upper Midwest Organ Procurement Organization | Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin |
Lifeline of Ohio Organ Procurement Agency | Ohio, West Virginia |
Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland | Maryland |
Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency | Louisiana |
Mid-America Transplant | Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois |
Mid-South Transplant Foundation | Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee |
Midwest Transplant Network | Kansas, Missouri |
Nebraska Organ Recovery System | Nebraska, Iowa |
Nevada Donor Network | Nevada |
New England Organ Bank | Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont |
New Jersey Organ & Tissue Sharing Network | New Jersey |
New Mexico Donor Services | New Mexico |
New York Organ Donor Network | New York, Pennsylvania |
OneLegacy | California |
Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency | Mississippi |
Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank | Idaho, Oregon, Washington |
Southwest Transplant Alliance | Texas |
Tennessee Donor Services | Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia |
Texas Organ Sharing Alliance | Texas |
TransLife/Florida Hospital | Florida |
University of Wisconsin Organ and Tissue Donation | Illinois, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin |
Upstate New York Transplant Services | New York |
Washington Regional Transplant Consortium | Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. |
Wisconsin Donor Network | Wisconsin |
Organ donation is the process when a person allows an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted to another person, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive or dead with the assent of the next of kin.
Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organs may be transported from a donor site to another location. Organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person's body are called autografts. Transplants that are recently performed between two subjects of the same species are called allografts. Allografts can either be from a living or cadaveric source.
Brain death is the permanent, irreversible, and complete loss of brain function which may include cessation of involuntary activity necessary to sustain life. It differs from persistent vegetative state, in which the person is alive and some autonomic functions remain. It is also distinct from comas as long as some brain and bodily activity and function remain, and it is also not the same as the condition locked-in syndrome. A differential diagnosis can medically distinguish these differing conditions.
The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), and its periodic revisions, is one of the Uniform Acts drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), also known as the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), in the United States with the intention of harmonizing state laws between the states.
Prior to the introduction of brain death into law in the mid to late 1970s, all organ transplants from cadaveric donors came from non-heart-beating donors (NHBDs).
Eye banks recover, prepare and deliver donated eyes for cornea transplants and research. The first successful cornea transplant was performed in 1905 and the first eye bank was founded in 1944. Currently, in the United States, eye banks provide tissue for over 80,000 cornea transplants each year to treat conditions such as keratoconus and corneal scarring. In some cases, the white of the eye (sclera) is used to surgically repair recipient eyes. Unlike other organs and tissues, there is an adequate supply of corneas for transplants in the United States, and excess tissue is exported internationally, where there are shortages in many countries, due to greater demand and a less-developed eye banking infrastructure.
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is a non-profit, scientific and educational organization that administers the only Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) in the United States, established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 by Gene A. Pierce, founder of United Network for Organ Sharing. Located in Richmond, Virginia, the organization's headquarters are situated near the intersection of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64 in the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park.
Organ procurement is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues for reuse, typically for organ transplantation.
The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 is an Act of the United States Congress which established the framework for the U.S. organ transplant system. The act clarified the property rights of human organs from deceased individuals and created a public-private partnership known as the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), which was empowered to manage organ allocation on a national basis.
Expanded Criteria Donor (ECD) is normally associated with kidney donors. They are also referred to as donors with "medical complexities". ECD donors are normally aged 60 years or older, or over 50 years with at least two of the following conditions: hypertension history, serum creatinine > 1.5 mg/dl or cause of death from cerebrovascular accident.
Lifeline of Ohio is one of four organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the state of Ohio designated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the United States Department of Health and Human Services to facilitate organ and tissue donation. As a licensed tissue bank, Lifeline of Ohio's tissue recovery services are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Lifeline of Ohio is also a member of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a government-chartered nationwide network operating under the United States Department of Health and Human Services
Francis L. Delmonico, MD, FACS is a surgeon, clinical professor and health expert in the field of transplantation. He serves on numerous committees and is affiliated with various leading organizations and institutions. He is the chief medical officer of the New England Organ Bank (NEOB) and Professor of Surgery, Part-Time at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is emeritus director of renal transplantation. He served as president of The Transplantation Society (TTS) from 2012 to 2014, an international non-profit organization based in Montreal, Canada that works with international transplantation physicians and researchers. He also served as the president of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) in 2005, which overseas the practice of organ donation and transplantation in the United States. He was appointed and still serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization in matters of organ donation and transplantation. He was appointed by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Science in 2016. In 2020, he became the recipient of the Medawar Prize of The Transplantation Society.
The Final Rule is a national policy in the United States that dictates the protocol for all cadaveric organ donation. The Final Rule replaced a variety of local and regional protocols with a unified policy for the first time. It also increased the Department of Health and Human Services' control of organ donation.
Organ donation in the United States prison population is the donation of biological tissues or organs from incarcerated individuals to living recipients in need of a transplantation.
The HIV Organ Policy Equity Act is a law that modifies rules regarding organ donation between HIV-positive individuals. The law authorizes clinical research and the revision of rules about organ donation and transportation as a result of the research. Organs from HIV donors would only be going to individuals who are already HIV positive, but could lead to 600 additional organ transplants a year. The use of HIV-positive organs was previously a federal crime. This bill passed the United States Senate during the 113th United States Congress, and also passed the United States House of Representatives. It was signed into law as PL 113-51 by President Barack Obama on November 21, 2013.
Transplant coordinator is a healthcare professional – doctor, nurse, or allied health science graduate – who coordinates activities related to organ donation and transplantation. Transplant coordinators can either be Donor Coordinators or Recipient Coordinators.
Kidney paired donation (KPD), or paired exchange, is an approach to living donor kidney transplantation where patients with incompatible donors swap kidneys to receive a compatible kidney. KPD is used in situations where a potential donor is incompatible. Because better donor HLA and age matching are correlated with lower lifetime mortality and longer lasting kidney transplants, many compatible pairs are also participating in swaps to find better matched kidneys. In the United States, the National Kidney Registry organizes the majority of U.S. KPD transplants, including the largest swaps. The first large swap was a 60 participant chain in 2012 that appeared on the front page of the New York Times and the second, even larger swap, included 70 participants and was completed in 2014. Other KPD programs in the U.S. include the UNOS program, which was launched in 2010 and completed its 100th KPD transplant in 2014, and the Alliance for Paired Donation.
Southwest Transplant Alliance(STA) is a United States non-profit organ procurement organization (OPO) headquartered in Dallas, Texas and founded in 1974. It is one of 58 federally-designated OPOs in the US, and one of three that service Texas.
Organ transplantation in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is regulated by India's Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 and is facilitated by the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) of the Government of Tamil Nadu and several NGOs. Tamil Nadu ranks first in India in deceased organ donation rate at 1.8 per million population, which is seven times higher than the national average.
Organ donation in India is regulated by the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994. The law allows both deceased and living donors to donate their organs. It also identifies brain death as a form of death. The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) functions as the apex body for activities of relating to procurement, allotment and distribution of organs in the country.
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