The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is looking for organ procurement organizations or other nonprofit, private organizations that want to study ways to increase organ and tissue donation.
According to a notice published in the Federal Register on April 5 (1999;64:16473-16475), the HRSA plans to fund about 15 to 20 projects over three years and expects to spend about $5 million in fiscal year 1999, the first year of the projects. A 30-day period for public comment on the projects ends on May 5.
“The goals of this program are to implement, evaluate, and disseminate model interventions with the greatest potential for yielding a verifiable and demonstrable impact on donation and which are replicable, transferable, and feasible in practice,” according to the notice in the Federal Register, which is posted at www.organdonor.gov/fregextra.htm.
The program will focus on organ donation, but the government expects that “projects to increase organ donation will have a similar impact on tissue donation.”
The Federal Register notes that the Health Care Financing Administration implemented rules last year requiring Medicaid- and Medicare-participating hospitals to notify organ procurement organizations of all deaths so that families could be asked to donate a patient’s organs, but only about half of families consent.
The programs that HRSA plans to fund will be conducted in two phases. In phase 1, pilot testing will be carried out on a small scale to test the efficacy of interventions to increase organ donation. The more expensive phase 2 will test, at multiple sites, the strategies that were identified during phase 1.
For Your Information:
Written comments should be addressed to:
D.W. Chen, MD, MPH
Director, Division of Transplantation
Office of Special Programs
Health Resources and Services Administration
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Room 4-81, Parklawn Building
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857
Please be aware that medical advice, diagnoses and physician references cannot be obtained from this site.