Assessing LSAM's ability to account for changes in organ donation and transplant center behavior.

The Liver Simulated Allocation Model (LSAM) is used to evaluate proposed organ allocation policies. Although LSAM has been shown to predict the directionality of changes in transplants and nonused organs, the magnitude is often overestimated. One reason is that policymakers and researchers using LSAM assume static levels of organ donation and center behavior because of challenges with predicting future behavior. We sought to assess the ability of LSAM to account for changes in organ donation and organ acceptance behavior using LSAM 2019. We ran 1-year simulations with the default model and then ran simulations changing donor arrival rates (ie, organ donation) and center acceptance behavior. Changing the donor arrival rate was associated with a progressive simulated increase in transplants, with corresponding simulated decreases in waitlist deaths. Changing parameters related to organ acceptance was associated with important changes in transplants, nonused organs, and waitlist deaths in the expected direction in data simulations, although to a much lesser degree than changing the donor arrival rate. Increasing the donor arrival rate was associated with a marked decrease in the travel distance of donor livers in simulations. In conclusion, we demonstrate that LSAM can account for changes in organ donation and organ acceptance in a manner aligned with historical precedent that can inform future policy analyses. As Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients develops new simulation programs, the importance of considering changes in donation and center practice is critical to accurately estimate the impact of new allocation policies.

Disparities in Access to Liver Transplant Referral and Evaluation among Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Georgia.

Liver transplantation offers the best survival for patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Prior studies have demonstrated disparities in transplant access; none have examined the early steps of the transplant process. We identified determinants of access to transplant referral and evaluation among patients with HCC with a single tumor either within Milan or meeting downstaging criteria in Georgia.Population-based cancer registry data from 2010 to 2019 were linked to liver transplant centers in Georgia. Primary cohort: adult patients with HCC with a single tumor ≤8 cm in diameter, no extrahepatic involvement, and no vascular involvement. Secondary cohort: primary cohort plus patients with multiple tumors confined to one lobe. We estimated time to transplant referral, evaluation initiation, and evaluation completion, accounting for the competing risk of death. In sensitivity analyses, we also accounted for non-transplant cancer treatment.Among 1,379 patients with early-stage HCC in Georgia, 26% were referred to liver transplant. Private insurance and younger age were associated with increased likelihood of referral, while requiring downstaging was associated with lower likelihood of referral. Patients living in census tracts with ≥20% of residents in poverty were less likely to initiate evaluation among those referred [cause-specific hazard ratio (csHR): 0.62, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.42-0.94]. Medicaid patients were less likely to complete the evaluation once initiated (csHR: 0.53, 95% CI: 0.32-0.89).Different sociodemographic factors were associated with each stage of the transplant process among patients with early-stage HCC in Georgia, emphasizing unique barriers to access and the need for targeted interventions at each step. SIGNIFICANCE: Among patients with early-stage HCC in Georgia, age and insurance type were associated with referral to liver transplant, race, and poverty with evaluation initiation, and insurance type with evaluation completion. Opportunities to improve transplant access include informing referring providers about insurance requirements, addressing barriers to evaluation initiation, and streamlining the evaluation process.

What is visible is fixable: Visual dashboards for multi-domain assessment of organ procurement organization performance.

With stakeholder focus on the United States organ procurement system, there is a need for tools that permit comparative assessment of organ procurement providers. We developed a public-facing dashboard for organ procurement organizations (OPOs), using data from multiple sources, to create an online, readily accessible visualization of OPO practice conditions and performance for the period 2010-2020. With this tool, OPOs can be compared on the CMS metric of donors procured per 100 donation-consistent deaths, as well as donation after circulatory death procurement, procurement of older and minority patient populations, procurement in smaller hospitals, and procurement of patients without a significant drug history. Patterns of higher performance were identified, and 74% of differences in overall donor procurement rates could be explained using model variables. Procurement differences were affected to a greater and more reproducible degree by OPO performance among Black and non-White patient populations, as well as in smaller hospitals, than by donation service area characteristics. Dashboards such as ours support OPOs and stakeholders in quality improvement actions, through leveraging benchmarked performance data among organ procurement clinical providers.

Identifying and understanding variation in population-based access to liver transplantation in the United States.

We aimed to identify variations in liver transplant access across transplant referral regions (TRRs), accounting for differences in population characteristics and practice environments. Adult end-stage liver disease (ESLD) deaths and liver waitlist additions from 2015 to 2019 were included. The primary outcome was listing-to-death ratio (LDR). We modeled the LDR as a continuous variable and obtained adjusted LDR estimates for each TRR, accounting for clinical and demographic characteristics of ESLD decedents, socioeconomic and health care environment within the TRR, and characteristics of the transplant environment. The overall mean LDR was 0.24 (range: 0.10-0.53). In the final model, proportion of patients living in poverty and concentrated poverty was negatively associated with LDR; organ donation rate was positively associated with LDR. The R2 was 0.60, indicating that 60% of the variability in LDR was explained by the model. Approximately 40% of this variation remained unexplained and may be due to transplant center behaviors amenable to intervention to improve access to care for patients with ESLD.

Doing it right: Caring for and protecting patient information for US organ donors and transplant recipients.

In the current US organ transplantation system, there are no regulations defining how organ procurement organizations must manage personal data and protect the privacy of donors and recipients. In response to the recent announcement of a major overhaul of the US transplantation system, we describe a practical approach to improving transplant data quality and protecting the autonomy of patients interacting with the system.

A Systematic review protocol on workplace equality and inclusion practices in the healthcare sector.

INTRODUCTION: While equality and inclusion practices in healthcare have been advanced from a service user perspective, little is known about the application of workplace equality and inclusion practices in healthcare on upper-middle-income and high-income countries. In the developed world, the composition of the healthcare workforce is changing, with nationals and non-nationals working 'side-by-side' suggesting that healthcare organisations must have robust and meaningful workplace equality and inclusion practices. Healthcare organisations who welcome and value all their employees are more creative and productive, which can lead to better quality of care. Additionally, staff retention is maximised, and workforce integration will succeed. In view of this, this study aims to identify and synthesise current best evidence relating to workplace equality and inclusion practices in the healthcare sector in middle-income and high-income economies. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Using the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome (PICO) framework, a search of the following databases will be made-MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, SCOPUS, PsycInfo, Business Source Complete and Google Scholar-using Boolean terms to identify peer-reviewed literatures concerning workplace equality and inclusion in healthcare from January 2010 to 2022. A thematic approach will be employed to appraise and analyse the extracted data with the view to assessing what is workplace equality and inclusion; why it is important to promote workplace equality and inclusion in healthcare; how can workplace equality and inclusion practices be measured in healthcare; and how can workplace equality and inclusion be advanced in health systems. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not required. Both a protocol and a systematic review paper are to be published concerning workplace equality and inclusion practices in the healthcare sector.

Predicting Kidney Transplant Recipient Cohorts' 30-Day Rehospitalization Using Clinical Notes and Electronic Health Care Record Data.

Introduction: Rehospitalization after kidney transplant is costly to patients and health care systems and is associated with poor outcomes. Few prediction model studies have examined whether inclusion of clinical notes data from the electronic medical record (EMR) enhances prediction of rehospitalization. Methods: In a retrospective, observational study of first-time, adult kidney transplant recipients at a large, urban hospital in southeastern United States (2005-2015), we examined 30-day rehospitalization (30DR) using structured EMR and unstructured (i.e., clinical notes) data. We used natural language processing (NLP) methods on 8 types of clinical notes and included terms in predictive models using unsupervised machine learning approaches. Both the area under the receiver operating curve and precision-recall curve (ROC and PRC, respectively) were used to determine and compare model accuracy, and 5-fold cross-validation tested model performance. Results: Among 2060 kidney transplant recipients, 30.7% were readmitted within 30 days. Predictive models using clinical notes did not meaningfully improve performance over previous models using structured data alone (ROC 0.6821; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.6644, 0.6998). Predictive models built using solely clinical notes performed worse than models using both clinical notes and structured data. The data that contributed to the top performing models were not identical but both included structured data and progress notes (ROC 0.6902; 95% CI: 0.6699, 0.7105). Conclusions: Including new features from clinical notes in risk prediction models did not substantially increase predictive accuracy for 30DR for kidney transplant recipients. Future research should consider pooling data from multiple institutions to increase sample size and avoid overfitting models.

Variability in Organ Procurement Organization Performance by Individual Hospital in the United States.

Importance: Availability of organs inadequately addresses the need of patients waiting for a transplant. Objective: To estimate the true number of donor patients in the United States and identify inefficiencies in the donation process as a way to guide system improvement. Design, Setting, and Participants: A retrospective cross-sectional analysis was performed of organ donation across 13 different hospitals in 2 donor service areas covered by 2 organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in 2017 and 2018 to compare donor potential to actual donors. More than 2000 complete medical records for decedents were reviewed as a sample of nearly 9000 deaths. Data were analyzed from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018. Exposure: Deaths of causes consistent with donation according to medical record review, ventilated patient referrals, center acceptance practices, and actual deceased donors. Main Outcomes and Measures: Potential donors by medical record review vs actual donors and OPO performance at specific hospitals. Results: Compared with 242 actual donors, 931 potential donors were identified at these hospitals. This suggests a deceased donor potential of 3.85 times (95% CI, 4.23-5.32) the actual number of donors recovered. There was a surprisingly wide variability in conversion of potential donor patients into actual donors among the hospitals studied, from 0% to 51.0%. One OPO recovered 18.8% of the potential donors, whereas the second recovered 48.2%. The performance of the OPOs was moderately related to referrals of ventilated patients and not related to center acceptance practices. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study of hospitals served by 2 OPOs, wide variation was found in the performance of the OPOs, especially at individual hospitals. Addressing this opportunity could greatly increase the organ supply, affirming the importance of recent efforts from the federal government to increase OPO accountability and transparency.

County-level Differences in Liver-related Mortality, Waitlisting, and Liver Transplantation in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Much of our understanding regarding geographic issues in transplantation is based on statistical techniques that do not formally account for geography and is based on obsolete boundaries such as donation service area. METHODS: We applied spatial epidemiological techniques to analyze liver-related mortality and access to liver transplant services at the county level using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients from 2010 to 2018. RESULTS: There was a significant negative spatial correlation between transplant rates and liver-related mortality at the county level (Moran's I, -0.319; P = 0.001). Significant clusters were identified with high transplant rates and low liver-related mortality. Counties in geographic clusters with high ratios of liver transplants to liver-related deaths had more liver transplant centers within 150 nautical miles (6.7 versus 3.6 centers; P < 0.001) compared with all other counties, as did counties in geographic clusters with high ratios of waitlist additions to liver-related deaths (8.5 versus 2.5 centers; P < 0.001). The spatial correlation between waitlist mortality and overall liver-related mortality was positive (Moran's I, 0.060; P = 0.001) but weaker. Several areas with high waitlist mortality had some of the lowest overall liver-related mortality in the country. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that high waitlist mortality and allocation model for end-stage liver disease do not necessarily correlate with decreased access to transplant, whereas local transplant center density is associated with better access to waitlisting and transplant.

Lost potential and missed opportunities for DCD liver transplantation in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Donation after cardiac death(DCD) has been proposed as an avenue to expand the liver donor pool. METHODS: We examined factors associated with nonrecovery of DCD livers using UNOS data from 2015 to 2019. RESULTS: There 265 non-recovered potential(NRP) DCD livers. Blood type AB (7.8% vs. 1.1%) and B (16.9% vs. 9.8%) were more frequent in the NRP versus actual donors (p < 0.001). The median driving time between donor hospital and transplant center was similar for NRP and actual donors (30.1 min vs. 30.0 min; p = 0.689), as was the percentage located within a transplant hospital (20.8% vs. 20.9%; p = 0.984).The donation service area(DSA) of a donor hospital explained 27.9% (p = 0.001) of the variability in whether a DCD liver was recovered. CONCLUSION: A number of potentially high quality DCD donor livers go unrecovered each year, which may be partially explained by donor blood type and variation in regional and DSA level practice patterns.

Listing at non-local transplant centers is associated with increased access to deceased donor kidney transplantation.

The ability of kidney transplant candidates to travel outside of their usual place of care varies by sociodemographic factors, potentially exacerbating disparities in access. We used Transplant Referral Regions (TRRs) to overcome previous methodological barriers of using geographic distance to assess the characteristics and outcomes of patients listed for kidney transplant at centers in neighboring TRR or beyond neighboring TRRs. Among listed kidney transplant candidates, 20.9% traveled to a neighbor and 5.6% beyond a neighbor. A higher proportion of travelers were White, had some college education, and lived in ZIP codes with lower poverty. Travel to a neighbor was associated with a 7% increase in likelihood of deceased donor transplant (cHR: 1.07, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.09) and traveling beyond a neighbor with a 19% increase (cHR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.24). Travelers had similar rates of living donor transplant and waitlist mortality as patients who did not travel; those who traveled beyond a neighbor had slightly lower posttransplant mortality (HR: 0.91, 95% CI: 0.83, 0.99). In conclusion, the ability to travel outside of the recipient's assigned TRR increases access to transplantation and improves long-term survival.

Examining utilization of kidneys as a function of procurement performance.

Questions have arisen around new metrics for organ procurement organizations (OPO) due to the perception that low-performing OPOs may be limited by local centers' acceptance of marginal organs. We reviewed 2013-2019 Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OTPN) and National Centers for Health Statistics (NCHS) data to explore the relationship between objectively measured OPO performance and utilization of deceased donor kidneys. We found that although donor recovery declined with rising age and kidney donor profile index (KDPI), OPO performance differences were evident within each age/KDPI group. By contrast, the number of discards per donor did not vary with OPO performance. Centers in donor service areas (DSAs) with lower-performing OPOs had higher local utilization and greater import of high-KDPI kidneys than did those with higher-performing OPOs. Lower rates of donor availability relative to waitlist additions may contribute to observed center acceptance behavior. Differences in center-level performance were highly visible in Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) organ acceptance metrics, while SRTR OPO metrics did not detect large or persistent variation in procurement performance. Cumulatively, our findings suggest that objective measures of procurement performance can inform discussions of organ utilization, allowing for alignment of metrics in all elements of the procurement-transplantation system.

Procurement characteristics of high- and low-performing OPOs as seen in OPTN/SRTR data.

To meet new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) metrics, organ procurement organizations (OPOs) will benefit from understanding performance across decedent and hospital types. We sought to determine the utility of existing data-reporting structures for this purpose by reviewing Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipient (SRTR) OPO-Specific Reports (OSRs) from 2013 to 2019. OSRs contain both the Standardized donation rate ratio (SDRR) metric and OPO-reported numbers of "eligible deaths" and donors by hospital. Donor hospitals were characterized using information from Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data, Dartmouth Atlas Hospital Service Area data, and the US Census Bureau. Hospital data reported by OPOs showed 51% higher eligible death donors and 140% higher noneligible death donors per 100 inpatient beds in CMS ranked top versus bottom-quartile OPOs. Top-quartile OPOs by the CMS metric recovered 78% more donors than those in the bottom quartile, but were indistinguishable by SDRR rankings. These differences persisted across hospital sizes, trauma case mix, and area demographics. OPOs with divergent performance were indistinguishable over time by SDRR, but showed changes to hospital-level recovery patterns in SRTR data. Contemporaneous recognition of underperformance across hospitals may provide important and actionable data for regulators and OPOs for focused quality improvement projects.

Opportunity to increase deceased donation for United States veterans.

Recent changes to organ procurement organization (OPO) performance metrics have highlighted the need to identify opportunities to increase organ donation in the United States. Using data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR), and Veteran Health Administration Informatics and Computing Infrastructure Clinical Data Warehouse (VINCI CDW), we sought to describe historical donation performance at Veteran Administration Medical Centers (VAMCs). We found that over the period 2010-2019, there were only 33 donors recovered from the 115 VAMCs with donor potential nationwide. VA donors had similar age-matched organ transplant yields to non-VA donors. Review of VAMC records showed a total of 8474 decedents with causes of death compatible with donation, of whom 5281 had no infectious or neoplastic comorbidities preclusive to donation. Relative to a single state comparison of adult non-VA inpatient deaths, VAMC deaths were 20 times less likely to be characterized as an eligible death by SRTR. The rate of conversion of inpatient donation-consistent deaths without preclusive comorbidities to actual donors at VAMCs was 5.9% that of adult inpatients at non-VA hospitals. Overall, these findings suggest significant opportunities for growth in donation at VAMCs.

Liver Transplantation in the Time of a Pandemic: A Widening of the Racial and Socioeconomic Health Care Gap During COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: During the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, organ transplantation was classified a CMS Tier 3b procedure which should not be postponed. The differential impact of the pandemic on access to liver transplantation was assessed. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: Disparities in organ access and transplant outcomes among vulnerable populations have served as obstacles in liver transplantation. METHODS: Using UNOS STARfile data, adult waitlisted candidates were identified from March 1, 2020 to November 30, 2020 (n = 21,702 pandemic) and March 1, 2019 to November 30, 2019 (n = 22,797 pre-pandemic), and further categorized and analyzed by time periods: March to May (Period 1), June to August (Period 2), and September to November (Period 3). Comparisons between pandemic and pre-pandemic groups included: Minority status, demographics, diagnosis, MELD, insurance type, and transplant center characteristics. Liver transplant centers (n = 113) were divided into tertiles by volume (small, medium, large) for further analyses. Multivariable logistic regression was fitted to assess odds of transplant. Competing risk regression was used to predict probability of removal from the waitlist due to transplantation or death and sickness. Additional temporal analyses were performed to assess changes in outcomes over the course of the pandemic. RESULTS: During Period 1 of the pandemic, Minorities showed greater reduction in both listing (-14% vs -12% Whites), and transplant (-15% vs -7% Whites), despite a higher median MELD at transplant (23 vs 20 Whites, P < 0.001). Of candidates with public insurance, Minorities demonstrated an 18.5% decrease in transplants during Period 1 (vs -8% Whites). Although large programs increased transplants during Period 1, accounting for 61.5% of liver transplants versus 53.4% pre-pandemic (P < 0.001), Minorities constituted significantly fewer transplants at these programs during this time period (27.7% pandemic vs 31.7% pre-pandemic, P = 0.04). Although improvements in disparities in candidate listings, removals, and transplants were observed during Periods 2 and 3, the adjusted odds ratio of transplant for Minorities was 0.89 (95% CI 0.83-0.96, P = 0.001) over the entire pandemic period. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19's effect on access to liver transplantation has been ubiquitous. However, Minorities, especially those with public insurance, have been disproportionately affected. Importantly, despite the uncertainty and challenges, our systems have remarkable resiliency, as demonstrated by the temporal improvements observed during Periods 2 and 3. As the pandemic persists, and the aftermath ensues, health care systems must consciously strive to identify and equitably serve vulnerable populations.

Public discourse and policy change: Absence of harm from increased oversight and transparency in OPO performance.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced changes to the Final Rule for organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in November 2020, after a 23-month period of public debate. One concern among transplant stakeholders was that public focus on OPO underperformance would harm deceased donation. Using CDC-WONDER data, we studied whether donation performance dropped during the era of public debate about OPO reform (December 2018-February 2020). Overall OPO performance as measured relative to cause, age, and location-consistent deaths rose by 12.3% in 2019, compared to a median annual change of 2.5% 2009-2019. Organ recoveries exceeded seasonally adjusted forecasts by 4.2% in the first half of 2019, by 8.1% following the Executive Order issuing a mandate for OPO metric reform, and by 14.1% between the Notice of Public Rule Making and the onset of COVID-19-related systemic disruptions. We describe changes in donor phenotype in the period of increased performance; improvement was greatest for older and donation after cardiac death (DCD) donors, and among decedents who did not have a drug-related mechanism of death. In summary, performance during an era of intense public debate and proposed regulatory changes yielded 692 additional donors over expectations, and no detriment to organ donation was observed.

Results of a data-driven performance improvement initiative in organ donation.

New metrics for organ procurement organization (OPO) performance utilize National Center for Health Statistics data to measure cause, age, and location consistent (CALC) deaths. We used this denominator to identify opportunities for improved donor conversion at one OPO, Indiana Donor Network (INOP). We sought to determine whether such analyses are immediately actionable for quality improvement (QI) initiatives directed at increased donor conversion. CALC-based assessment of INOP's performance revealed an opportunity to improve conversion of older donors. Following the QI initiative, INOP donor yield rose by 44%, while organs transplanted rose by 29%. These changes tolerated temporary disruption around the COVID-19 pandemic. Improved donor yield was primarily seen in older groups identified by CALC-based methods. Process changes in resource allocation and monitoring were associated with a 57% increase in the number of potential donors approached in the QI period and a subsequent rise in the number of potential donor referrals, suggesting positive feedback at area hospitals. Post-intervention, INOP's projected donation performance rose from 51st to 18th among all OPOs. OPOs can use CALC death data to accurately assess donor conversion by categories including age and race/ethnicity. These data can be used in real time to inform OPO-level processes to maximize donor recovery.