2022 News Highlights

"Veteran Access and Limitations to Organ Recovery (VALOR)," a new National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) R01-funded investigation led by Raymond Lynch, MD, transplant surgeon and associate director of the Health Services Research Center (HSRC) at Emory, is designed to determine which patients receive high quality medical care for organ donation.

In the U.S., organ procurement organizations (OPOs) are the federal contractors that work with all hospitals to identify, provide clinical care for, and procure organs from patients who are referred as potential organ donors. Yet, prior research from Dr. Lynch has shown that not all patients are provided timely, high-quality care for potential organ donation, due to high levels of unwarranted variation in clinical and community practice between OPOs. These disparities are especially pronounced at Veteran's Administration Medical Centers (VAMCs), the largest integrated health system in the U.S.

In a 2020-21 pilot study on veteran attitudes and limitations to organ recovery, Dr. Lynch and his collaborators demonstrated that patients at VAMCs were 94.1% less likely to be organ donors than other patients. Shockingly, there were only 33 organ donors at VAMCs from 2010-2019, and detailed analysis of VAMC electronic health records revealed more than 5,000 potential organ donor patients over the same time period. Dr. Lynch maintains that improvements can be made by finding areas for intervention, sharing best practices, and supporting fresh insights into their application.

"With the support of the NIHMD, we have a truly unique opportunity to understand why veteran patients have low access care for organ donation," says Dr. Lynch. "We are proud to work with more than 17 OPO partners nationally as well as the VA, to describe opportunities to improve organ donation care and quality of care as provided by OPO clinical staff to veteran patients. Our Emory HSRC team is ready to use community based research principles, complex analysis of health records, and all of our HSRC resources to improve care for veteran patients."

"This research has the potential to increase the number of organ donors, and improve quality of care provided to veterans, in a very tangible way," says Katherine Ross-Driscoll, PhD, MPH, co-investigator on the grant and a member of both the HSRC and the Emory Transplant Health Services and Outcomes Research Program of the Department of Surgery. "I'm excited for our team and the HSRC, to lead the way in applying what we have learned analyzing health data in close collaboration with the community of VA patients and providers. This is what we can do with our partners — help patients get better care, right now."