Following a White House summit on organ donation, OHSU will receive millions of dollars to try to make organs more accessible to the patients who need them.
Every 10 minutes another person is added to the organ waiting list in the U.S. And every day 22 people on that list die.
The easy fixes have already been done, like keeping organs at the right temperature and removing them from a donor in the right order.
Now the Laura and John Arnold Foundation is giving OHSU and several donor groups $4 million to improve the system.
Trauma surgeon Darren Malinoski said of the eight organs that can be recovered from a donor, only an average of three are being transplanted. “And that’s the process that needs a deeper dive," he said.
Organs that can be transplanted include the obvious ones such as hearts, lungs and kidneys. But eye corneas, tendons, bones, pancreases and small intestines can also be reused.
Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting
