Optimización del proceso de donación de tejidos en un hospital universitario: 10 años de experiencia

Tissue Donors in Regional Hospitals: A Reality

Progress in transplantation means the process of procuring both human organ and tissues has become a daily challenge. Considering that tissues are usually procured from organ donors who have suffered brain death or after controlled cardiac death, the tissue procurement is done mainly in major hospitals. With the aim of highlighting the potential role of regional hospitals in tissue donation, a prospective descriptive study was carried out of all the patients who died at the Regional Hospital of Inca in Mallorca (Spain) from January 2013 to August 2018. To ensure an early detection of all possible tissue donors, the hospital has implemented a computerized alert system that is activated immediately after a patient dies. This strategy has proven to be very useful as in the analyzed period, the hospital had an average of 280 donors per million population, which is one of the highest rates of cornea donation among the Spanish hospitals. Our data and experience show the important role of regional hospitals in tissue donation and the value of implementing screening programs and early selection of potential tissue donors.

Relatives' Perception After Tissue Donation Experience: Results of a Postdonation Phone Survey

INTRODUCTION

Postmortem tissue donation (TD) requires the establishment of strategies for family approach to clearly explain the characteristics of multi-tissue donation. In a tertiary university hospital with a long tradition of tissue generation, we designed a survey to be applied to tissue donor families to evaluate global hospital care, care from Transplant Coordinators (TC), quality and content of information given about TD, experience, and motivations after TD process.

METHODOLOGY

A prospective phone survey of 10 multiple-choice items was conducted to all TD relatives that agreed to donate one or more tissues.

RESULTS

From the 166 calls made to TD relatives, 75 (45%) were answered: 50 were cornea donors and 25 were multiple-tissues donors. None of the relatives denied participating, the rest were not found. No statistical differences in demographical variables were found between both types of TD. The hospital and TC care perception, the quality of the given information about the processes of TD, the postdonation experiences in terms of procedures, and the impression about body appearance for relatives regardless of the type of donation, corneas or multiple tissues, were evaluated as good or very good for most of the TD relatives. Our study showed that 83% of the family members would agree to donate again; 40% of the relatives were surprised to be offered the option to donate; 10% did not know if they would donate again. Solidarity was the leading reason for TD.

CONCLUSION

The relatives' perception of care is a critical component of the quality evaluation of the TD process. The global evaluation results support our strategies for family approach.