Addressing the proposed new requirements for verification of donor-recipient ABO compatibility in organ procurement and transplantation

A transfusion medicine physician in Chicago wishes to alert colleagues to new rules recently proposed in February 2005 by CMS (Medicare) for organ procurement and transplant which would require verifications of blood types of donors and recipients by transplant personnel at multiple steps in the transplant process. The attached PDF files (OPO, Hospitals) consist of extracted relevant passages from the lengthy full documents. These rules would codify what UNOS was already requiring for blood type verifications as of Oct 2004. The Chicago physician reports that his hospital has instituted a system wherein the blood bank takes custody of incoming organs (and living donor kidneys as they come from the operating room). Staff performs a clerical and computer check of ABO compatibility, and then issue the organ to the transplant OR with a compatibility tag like a blood component. They have summarized their approach in Ramsey G et al: Preventing ABO blood group errors in organ transplantation, using blood transfusion as a model system. Transfusion 44 (suppl): 132A, 2004.

Other colleagues who are addressing this issue are encouraged to share their plans.

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