How Royal Melbourne Hospital doubled number of organ donors
Only a tiny percentage of people is eligible to become organ donors when they die. But a Victorian hospital has almost doubled the number of patients who donate their organs, after making one small change.
VIC News
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One of Victoria’s largest hospitals has almost doubled the number of patients who donate their organs upon death, simply by training nurses in starting the conversation with families.
With only about one per cent of people dying in hospital eligible to become organ donors, the Royal Melbourne Hospital this week shared its recipe for converting these rare opportunities into the gift of life at an international conference.
RMH emergency physician Dr Martin Dutch, who presented the results at the Congress of the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement, said as part of efforts to lift their donor rates they analysed the experience of patients of potential donors.
They found many different types of staff were initiating the conversation without training.
Consequently four years ago, in collaboration with DonateLife, they made it compulsory for any staff involved in organ donation to undergo communication education.
They also trained four specialist nursing co-ordinators to lead the way in dealing with families.
These nurses are also on an on-call roster to help at smaller hospitals across the state.
In the three years since implementing the training, the RMH has doubled the number of families they are raising the topic of organ donation with.
From this, 74 per cent of families opted to donate last year, compared to 46 per cent in 2014 – the year before the new system. This equates to an extra 93 donated organs, with 176 organs transplanted in a record year for the hospital last year.
“We aim to offer families an un-rushed and informed discussion about the benefits of organ donation, so they can make a decision in line with their loved one’s wishes and one that sits comfortably with them now, and in the future,” Dr Dutch said.
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Dr Dutch said the turnaround – which is considered best practice and will be rolled out nationally – also involved educating staff to overturn presumptions about who can be donors.
“Some people think they’re too old, haven’t looked after themselves well enough or they’re excluded because of a medical condition,” he said.
“But there are a surprising number of people from a surprising number of age ranges and medical conditions who are able to donate.
“Our oldest organ donor was 87, and they absolutely saved someone’s life.
“There are over 1500 Australians on the organ transplant waiting list.
“A number of them will sadly become too sick to be safely transplanted, and some will even die while they’re waiting.
“We’re prepared to consider any offer in an attempt to save someone in need.”