Organ Donation List

If you or someone you know needs an organ donation or transplantation, it is necessary to be placed on a national "waiting list." The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) maintains a centralized computer network, UNET, which connects every organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and transplant centers. The national waiting list is updated on UNET. This list is open only to the transplant professionals who are members of organ procurement and transplantation network. It can not be accessed by the public.

The steps required to get a national list of waiting:

1. Get a recommendation from a doctor.

2. Contact a hospital transplant to know as much as possible on the 200 transplant hospitals, plus the U.S. and select one based on individual needs, including insurance, location, finances, and availability of group support.

3. Appointments for evaluation in the hospital transplant to determine if you are a good candidate for a transplant.

4. During the evaluation, ask questions to learn as much as possible about the hospital and its transplant team.

5. Once the assessment is complete, the transplant team at the hospital will determine when it should be added to the national waiting list.

Patients are not notified by UNOS when they are added to the waiting list. The transplant team that contacts the patient's assessment in writing within 10 days and inform the patient of the date and time of their names were added to the list. The patient then directed questions about their status on the waiting list for the transplant team of transplant center.

The national average waiting time for a heart is 230 days. People awaiting a heart transplant are assigned a status code, which indicates how urgently they need a heart. Because organs like the heart and lungs can survive outside the body of 4 to 6 hours, they are primarily people who live near the place where the donor is hospitalized. If no other donor is a close match to the heart transplant team begins to look any further by a series of zones in a specific order.

The average waiting time for a lung is 1068 days. The team UNOS divides people awaiting lung transplants in two groups - those who need a new one lung and those who need both. The lung allocation system uses clinical information, including laboratory values, test results, diagnosis and disease, to estimate the urgency of the need for a candidate for transplant and the probability of survival long after transplantation. This score award lung, and blood group, age and distance from the donor hospital are considered when determining the order in which a lung donation is offered to beneficiaries of candidates.

The distance is important because the lungs can not survive outside the body for 4-6 hours, they are first offered to people close to the donor. If no other donor is a close match to the lung transplant team began to look further through a series of areas in a specific order. A pair of lungs will be given to a person who needs both, or split between two people who need a single lung transplant.

Candidates for heart-lung transplants are recorded on both UNOS

Heart patient waiting lists and patients with lung UNOS waiting list. If the donor heart is available, the patient receives a lung to go with it from the same donor. If the patient is eligible to receive a lung, the heart of the donor will be given to patients in heart / lung as well. Because these organs can not survive outside the body of 4 to 6 hours, they are primarily those near the donor. If no other donor is a close match to the heart and read.