This post is Part One in Afflo's Transplant Equity Series.
Organ donation and transplantation community members and advocates know that transplant has an equity problem. Balancing the utility of a donated organ with equity has been a longstanding, core tension. Utility is maximized by prioritizing patients who will get the most benefit out of the organ (based on a combination of their disease severity and their ability to sustain the graft). Equity ensures all patients, regardless of health status or sociodemographic factors (age, race, income, access to insurance) have access to organs transplants. Recently, scrutiny on equity has grown based on the National Academy for Sciences Engineering and Medicine’s report, Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System.
Afflo is currently leading a jurisdictional review to uncover common challenges and best practices to advance equity. It is clear that there are socioeconomic, age, racial, and equity disparities at each stage of the pre-transplant and transplant process.
There are many decision points at every stage of the transplant process. Each decision point is also an access point. So far, it is clear these decision points are barriers both in places like the United States where there is less health insurance coverage as well as the United Kingdom and Canada where there is universal healthcare.
Part 2 of our Transplant Equity Series will dive deep into Waitlist Access.