Automated donor referrals help improve patient care and optimize hospital resources
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Transplant Connect, a Los Angeles-based medical software company that has introduced innovative new technology known as iReferralSM, and Cerner Corporation, a global healthcare technology company, announce their new collaboration to enable automated donor referrals. This new technology is designed to help increase and expedite potential organ, tissue and eye donor referrals to increase recipient matches, lessen missed opportunities for timely donation and reduce the number of hours caregivers spend on the donor referral process. This automation is especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic as intensive-care units are overburdened.
"This integration is a prime example of how health systems can talk to one another, which helps eliminate manual bottlenecks that drain time and resources," said Sam Lambson, Cerner Vice President of Interoperability. "Our goal is to provide resources that not only help doctors and nurses deliver more efficient, better care, but improve the lives of their patients. Simplifying the transplant process helps everyone at every stage."
U.S. hospitals are required to provide timely notification to its designated organ-procurement organization (OPO) of every potential organ, tissue and eye donor, as required by regulations from the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services. The need for good donors is significant in the U.S., according to the Health Resources and Services Administration:
- Every 9 minutes, a person is added to the U.S. transplant waiting list
- More than 106,000 adults and children are currently on the list.
- About 39,000 transplants were performed in 2020 in the U.S.
- 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant in the U.S.
Cerner Millennium EHR and Transplant Connect's iReferral interface engine will integrate to allow a seamless and near real-time donor identification and referral process, delivering critical information from Cerner Millennium into the iTransplant Donor Management Platform, operated by Transplant Connect and utilized by organ-procurement organizations to manage their donor cases and facilitate donation and transplant. Through this process, a potential donor is identified and seamlessly referred to the organ-procurement organization via an electronic "organ donation order" where all pertinent information is sent to the organ-procurement organization's iTransplant Donor Management System. The system then sends back a notification confirming the details have been received. This new automated process replaces the much more time-consuming and labor-intensive phone-based referral process and is designed to improve the efficiency of the organ donation workflow, thereby decreasing errors caused by manual data transfer and increasing the chances of a positive organ outcome.
Initially launched at five different hospitals, this new integration has the potential to make a substantial impact. According to Transplant Connect, its iTransplant Donor Management systems are utilized by 74% of all organ procurement organizations in the U.S. as well as in other countries, and approximately 4,500 of the just over 6,000 hospitals in the U.S. potentially refer organ, tissue and/or eye donors to these organ procurement organizations on the iTransplant Platform.
"This new solution helps to expedite the approval process for a potential organ procurement and ultimately a timely donation to a prospective patient," said Jenifer Hagovsky, Madison (Ala.) Hospital Intensive Care Unit Director.
Transplant Connect Founder and CEO John Piano added "Cerner's initiative and commitment to this integration will help to drive the important paradigm shift away from inefficient, phone-based processes in favor of near real-time automation. Our success here stands to positively impact thousands of hospitals while improving and expediting critical steps in the donation process and increasing lives saved and healed through transplantation."
About Transplant Connect
Los Angeles-based Transplant Connect is an innovative global leader in cloud-based interoperable medical records software. With solutions spanning the organ, eye, tissue, cellular and birth tissue donation, transplant and research fields, the company's iTransplant Medical Ecosystem Software Platform enables powerful real-time interoperability across the donation-transplant field and provides a backbone of electronic medical record, analytics, communications and logistics tracking systems utilized by organ procurement organizations, eye banks, tissue banks, birth tissue agencies, transplant centers, hospitals, research institutions and many others across the United States and internationally. In the U.S., iTransplant Systems are used by organizations that collectively facilitate nearly 75% of all transplants from deceased donors, and from the time iTransplant Software was first launched into live use, total annual U.S. organ transplants from deceased donors have increased by approximately 65%. For more information, visit TransplantConnect.com.
About Cerner
Cerner's health technologies connect people and information systems at thousands of contracted provider facilities worldwide dedicated to creating smarter and better care for individuals and communities. Recognized globally for innovation, Cerner assists clinicians in making care decisions and assists organizations in managing the health of their populations. The company also offers a connected clinical and financial ecosystem to help manage day-to-day revenue functions, as well as a wide range of services to support clinical, financial and operational needs, focused on people. For more information, visit Cerner.com, Cerner Perspectives, connect on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or join the discussion on Cerner's podcast Perspectives on Health & Tech. Nasdaq: CERN. Healthcare is too important to stay the same.
