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The Donation Process
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A Trauma
The opportunity for organ donation most often results when individuals have sustained an injury that causes brain death. Motor vehicle accidents, shootings, drownings, industrial accidents, severe allergic reactions and ruptured vessels can cause brain death.
Transport
A highly specialized team of paramedics and emergency medical technicians will begin life-saving efforts at the scene of an accident or medical emergency. During transport to a hospital, the paramedics are in constant contact with emergency room staff.
Emergency Room
Doctors and nurses evaluate injuries and continue life-saving measures, including using a ventilator to help provide oxygen to the patient. When the patient's heartbeat and blood pressure stabilize, the patient is taken to an intensive care unit (ICU).
Intensive Care Unit
A doctor will perform special tests to see how much damage has been done, especially to the patient's brain. During these tests, the medical team will continue efforts to save the patient's life.
Death Occurs
In the event that death occurs, the patient will be evaluated for donation. There are two legal definitions of death: brain death and cardiac death. To determine if the brain has stopped working, doctors perform several tests. Tests must show that blood is not flowing to the brain, and the body is unable to respond to various stimuli, such as a bright light flashed in the eyes. After tests show there is no blood supply to the brain, the patient is unable to breathe on his own and the patient is unresponsive, doctors will pronounce the patient "brain dead." Brain death means that the brain has stopped working and will not work again. Cardiac death is caused when the heart stops beating and cannot restart. Both types of death are permanent and irreversible. Once the patient has been pronounced dead, doctors will inform the patient's family of the death.
Referral/Consent
After doctors inform the family that the patient has died, the hospital staff will notify CORE . If CORE determines there is potential for organ donation, CORE will send a specially trained staff member to the hospital to talk with the family about the opportunity to donate. With the quickness of a cardiac death, the family typically has either left or never made it to the hospital; therefore, CORE calls the family at home. CORE will address the family's questions and obtain a medical and social history from the family before proceeding with a recovery. If the patient is at least 18 and has a signed donor card or a donor designation on his or her license, CORE will talk with the family, but the family cannot override his or her decision. This is one of the reasons it is important to share with your family your wishes regarding donation. Once consent has been obtained, CORE will proceed with the recovery.
The Recovery
A team of organ transplant surgeons, separate from the doctors who treated the patient at the hospital, will perform the organ recovery. Organs will be recovered in a sterile operating room at the hospital where the individual died. CORE then will transport the organs, which usually first will help patients awaiting transplantation at the five organ transplant hospitals in CORE 's area. If the individual also is donating eyes and tissue, CORE staff members — known as recovery coordinators — will next perform this recovery.
Organ Placement
As the recovery is taking place, the donor's blood type, height and weight are entered into a computer at the CORE office. The computer is linked to a national computer that holds the names of patients awaiting an organ transplant. The computer then will match the donor with the transplant candidates in most critical need of the donated organ in CORE 's immediate area.
Funeral Arrangements
Donation does not prevent the donor from having an open-casket viewing. One cannot tell that someone was a donor unless the family chooses to share the way in which its loved one helped others through donation.
Follow-up
About 10 days after the donation, the donor's family receives a letter from CORE. The letter explains how the donor helped others through organ and tissue donation. Names are not included in the letter. One full organ, tissue and corneal donor may help more than 50 people.
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