Maximizing utilization of reported donor lungs in Eurotransplant: impact of the rescue allocation policy on utilization rates.
Lung donor recognition and treatment should be further improved. In 2007 only 22% of all donors in Eurotransplant were actual lung donors. During the past decade, Eurotransplant has increased the utilization of lung donors from 43% in 1999 to 54% in 2007. Increasing the number of lung transplants should be done by maximizing this utilization rate. Eurotransplant has 4 mechanisms in place in order to ensure that the highest degree of effectiveness is achieved with every reported lung donor. The Eurotransplant rescue allocation policy--which is one of these mechanisms--accounted for an additional 16.6% of the total transplant volume.
Smits
Jacqueline M
JM
Eurotransplant International Foundation, Leiden, The Netherlands.
van der Bij
Wim
W
Laufer
Guenther
G
Rahmel
Axel O
AO
Meiser
Bruno
B
D005060:Europe; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D019520:Living Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016040:Lung Transplantation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018579:Patient Selection; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000379:methods; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014850:Waiting Lists