Charitable contributions will fund automation of the Kidney Paired Donation Program

Here's the story: Charitable contributions will fund automation of the Kidney Paired Donation Program

The UNOS Foundation has received $750,000 in charitable contributions for the Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) program: $500,000 from United Health Foundation and $250,000 from Pfizer.

The Foundation, UNOS staff, and a KPD working group (Dr. Ken Andreoni, Dr. Rich Formica, and Dr. John Friedewald) have been working to raise $1.58 million from private sources to help fund the KPD system and to cover costs not budgeted by the OPTN. These include software programming; software licensing; educational materials for patients and donors, and user training/resources for professionals.

UNOS has worked to develop a national KPD program since 2004, led by the KPD working group of the OPTN/UNOS Kidney Transplantation Committee. Currently, more than 120 kidney transplant programs are participating. The working group is now approaching the final phase – full automation of the KPD system.

UNOS’ KPD work has been funded, in part, through the OPTN contract, but has needed additional support to accomplish the project sooner, without further pressure on the registration fee. In addition to the hours devoted to this project by the working group volunteers, the KPD project has attracted enormous volunteer support from many others in the transplant community, as well as gifts from charitable foundations and in-kind donations of software and consulting from Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon Universities, the New England Organ Bank, EDS Consulting and ILOG.

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Note: A recent UNOS KPD committee conference call discussing the desirability of "full automation" was cut short when the automated conference calling software declared the hour was over...