All About UNOS

From its Richmond, Va, headquarters, UNOS members and staff serve transplant patients and members of the public in many ways.

• Through the Organ Center, UNOS manages the national transplant waiting list, matching donors to recipients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
• UNOS monitors every organ match to ensure adherence to UNOS policy.
• UNOS members work together to develop equitable policies that maximize the limited supply of organs and give all patients a fair chance at receiving the organ they need regardless of age, sex, race, lifestyle, financial, or social status.
• UNOS sets professional standards for efficiency and quality patient care.
• UNOS maintains the database that contains all clinical transplant data. These data are used to improve the medicine and science of transplantation, develop organ allocation policy, aid scientific research and support transplant professionals in caring for patients.
• UNOS raises public awareness about the importance of organ donation and works to keep patients informed about issues and policy.

How Organ Matching Works

The Transplant Waiting list:

All patients accepted onto a transplant programs waiting list are registered with UNOS. UNOS maintains a centralized computer network linking all program procurement organizations and transplant centers. Organ placement specialist operate the network 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

The Matching Process:

When an organ becomes available, the local procurement organization coordinates the surgical recovery team, access the UNOS computer, enters information about the donor organs and runs the match program. This computer generates a list of patients ranked according to objective medical criteria such as blood type, tissue type, size of the organ and medical urgency of the patient. Other factors are time on the waiting list and distance between the donor and the transplant center. The specific criteria differ for each type of organ.
The list of patients waiting on the local list are checked first (except for kidneys, which are sent to perfectly matched patients, no matter where in the country the patient lives). If no match is made with the patients listed locally, the organ is checked against the regional list of patients waiting. If no match is made on the regional list, the organ is made available to patients nation wide. The computerized matching process can locate the best possible matches between donor organs and the patients who need them, but the final decision rests with the patients transplant team.

The Organ Offer:

When the organ is offered, the transplant team must consider several factors to decide the best medical care for their individual patient. It is not unusual for transplant team to say "no" to a particular organ. This is a normal part of the matching process. After being turned down for one patient, the organ is offered to the next patient on the list. This process continues until the organ is placed.

How Policies Are Made:

The organ distribution and matching process is based on policies developed by UNOS members. As the science of transplantation continues to advance, UNOS polices also evolve. The goal of UNOS policy-making is to create a system that gives every transplant candidate a fair chance at receiving the organ they need.