Lifeline

More than 119,000 men, women and children are on the United States National Transplant Waitlist. Organ donation takes healthy organs and tissues from one person for transplantation into another. Transplants are a standard, successful treatment for many diseases and conditions. Despite medical advances and transplantation capabilities, every day, 22 people die waiting for a transplant. This is largely due to the substantial imbalance between the supply and demand for organs; however, organ allocation strategies are also a significant factor in waitlist mortality. There are currently 58 donor service areas and 11 regions that are used for organ allocation. To match donors with patients, several factors are considered: blood type, body sick, level of sickness, organ or tissue type, time on waitlist, and distance from the donor. However, current allocation strategies for most organs prioritize geography/proximity to donor as the primary factor in determining organ allocation. This leads to vast geographical disparities with respect to organ supply and demand that can have serious consequences for many patients on the transplant waitlist.

Geographic disparity in access to organ transplantation has a profound impact on mortality and morbidity due to organ failure. Current policies mandate allocation of organs to local recipients within a given donor service area prior to broader regional or national sharing. This organ allocation strategy contributes to waitlist mortality and can decrease the benefit of transplant. Consequently, there is a strong case to expand, redistrict and even altogether eliminate geographic boundaries in order to reduce pervasive disparity in access to organ transplantation. The current transportation strategies and infrastructure employed by transplant centers and organ procurement organizations were developed to operate under the current allocation procedures, in which the vast majority of transports span relatively short geographic distances and can be accomplished using helicopters or ground transportation. If current redistricting proposals were adopted, the use of aircraft for organ transplant would increase substantially, as would the logistical complexity of such transportation. To address this likely possibility of increased air transportation for organ delivery, the Lifeline project aims to generate a realistic, dynamic model of the organ transportation system in order to optimize transportation strategies & evaluate the use of the AW609 in this capacity.