| Name |
Sundar |
| Title |
A Network Based Transplant Waiting List and Organ Matching Software |
| Authors |
Sundar, Sajidh, Dr. Shroff |
| Institution |
Sundar, Sajidh - Mohan Foundation - Chennai.
www.mohanfoundation.org |
| Abstract |
Organ transplantation has been one of the greatest advances of modern science that has resulted in many patients getting a renewed lease of life. Transplantation would not be possible but for organ donation. Organs can be donated by a living person, after natural death and after “Brain death”. Brain death is relatively a new concept of death that was first recognized in Paris in 1959. In this form of death the brain tissue dies first and the death of other organs follow soon afterwards.The Govt. of India recognized this condition and passed a legislation accepting this form of death in 1994. An act was passed by the Government in 1994 also to streamline various organ donations and transplant activities in the country. This legislation was entitled, ‘Transplantation of Human Organ (THO) Act’. Since this act was passed it has been possible to undertake multi-organ transplant activity from brain dead donors in India. After natural death only a few tissues can be donated (like cornea, bone, skin and blood vessels) whereas after brain death almost 37 different organs and tissues can be donated including critical organs such as kidneys, heart, liver and lungs. At any given time there are 8 to 10 brain dead patients in different Intensive care Units in any major city of the country. There is hence potentially a huge pool of brain death donors available in India. In 90% of all transplant done across the world the organs come from these brain dead donors. However in this situation time is the essence in organizing both procurement of organs and transplant of various organs and tissues to various patients as all organs have a critical time limit beyond which they cannot be stored. In India since the act was passed the Total Cadaver Transplants activities for various solid organs are as follows (Jan 1995 to Jun 2001): Kidney-379, Heart-34, Liver-12,Pancreas-02.
Besides the above organs other organs and tissues also have been procured and includes almost over 600 corneas, about 50 heart valves and occasionally skin donation.
To undertake this cadaver program successfully an adequate the organs need to be properly matched and distributed. The organs that are donated do not belong to one particular hospital and should be distributed universally to the needy patients and should be treated like national health resource. To make this possible a “computerized Registry” needs to be set up in the country.This will have dual purpose. It will store the data of patients waiting to undergo transplants from various centers in the country (this waiting list will be for all organs). When an organ is available it will be able to correctly match the organ so that it can be sent to the hospital to be transplanted into the needy patient.
We will present our Web Based Network software that has now been accpted by organ sharing network organisations like MOHAN (Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network).
MOHAN is an acronym for Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network and was formed in 1997 and has offices in Chennai and Mumbai. It is a registered NGO with 80G Income tax exemption. MOHAN was formed to be a facilitator of cadaver organ donation and transplant programme in the country and has tackled various issues in this field. It was felt that in the long run to create a proper hierarchy in a NGO it would be best to form separate subunits that can function under separate heads and have one overall head to run the foundation and co-ordinate between these units. Different regions in the country may have different requirements and by having these it was felt that a unit could function in a region without conflicting with the interests of some other NGO in that region. Interestingly the idea came up the first time when we wanted to start a "Patient support group" in Mumbai in 1998. MOHAN hence has many activities in the field of organ donation and transplantation. These include:
1. INOS (Initiative for Organ Sharing Group) in Tamil Nadu. Formed in Nov' 1999. Initially with Apollo Hospitals, Sri Ramachandra Hospital, Sundaram Medical Foundation, (all from Chennai), Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, and now also has Kovai Medical Centre from Coimbatore and Indraprastha Hospital, N.Delhi as affliate hospitals to the group.
The different hospitals in the group have so far shared 64 kidneys, 5 hearts and 2 livers.
Similar network of hospitals has started in other regions and include FORTE (Foundation for Organ Transplantation and Education) at Bangalore & ZTCC (Zonal Transplant Co-coordinating Committee) at Mumbai. These also have similarly shared organs between different hospitals. MOHAN is the process of creating a nationwide affliation with like minded organizations. MOHAN also is initiating an organ sharing network in Andhra Pradesh based at Hyderabad.
2. Patient Support Group (PSG) - meets once in 2 months with patients and discuss their problems and we have about 300 members in the group both in Chennai and Mumbai. We network with another NGO called TANKER organisation for these meetings as they provide subsidised dialysis to patients.
3. Public Education for organ Donation - Donor Cards and organ donation awareness movies are the focus. Over 150,000 donor cards have been distributed in English, Tamil, Marathi and Hindi. The Foundation also has literature on organ donation, prevention on diseases ( almost numbering 100) .
4. Indian transplant Newsletter - We have been publishing this since 1998 and are in the 11th issue. This voices national news and is not restricted to MOHAN or Tamil Nadu. The executive committee has doctors from the transplant field from all over the country (including yourself). Some well wishers of Indian cadaver programme are also included in the committee and they do contribute articles every so often. 1500 to 2000 copies of the newsletter are despatched every quarter to transplant clinicians in Indian and abraod. We have over 250 paid subscribers to the newsletter.
MOHAN Foundation has conducted regular symposiums on issues related to “Brain Death” at different hospitals in Chennai, Vellore and Hyderabad and also compiled a 200 pages manual for ICU for this purpose.There are five hospitals inthe group using this software.
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| Presentation Type |
Power Point Slides |
| Requirements |
Data Projector |
