Why does the patient who appears first on the waiting list not gel an organ?
To answer this question, it is important to understand how organs are allocated. When a patient is accepted into a transplant program, his or her name is added to the “pool” of patient names. When an organ becomes available, each patient in this “pool” is matched by the computer against the donor’s characteristics. The computer then generates a list of patients ranked in order based upon medical and scientific criteria comparing all patients in the pool to that particular donor. Factors affecting ranking may include tissue match, blood type, length of time on the waiting list and immune status. In the case of heart, heart-lung, liver, lung and pancreas, how far the potential recipient is from the donor hospital is taken into consideration. Therefore, each donor will generate a differently ranked list of patients. After receiving a printout of the waiting list, the transplant coordinator contacts the transplant team of surgeons and physicians for selection of a patient using the ranking
