There aren't enough days in the year to remember all of important history by naming a day, but some days stand out. The oldest one I know is the 9th day of the month of Av in the Jewish calendar, Tisha b'Av.
But October 7 is likely to be remembered for a long time, an unimaginable day whose dire consequences are still unfolding.
The Genesis Prize Foundation remembers the first anniversary with these videos:
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There are things you can go to prison for that wouldn't have been possible to do not long ago.
The Washington Post is on the case:
Rancher sentenced to 6 months in prison for illegally cloning giant sheep. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 81, previously pleaded guilty to creating giant hybrid sheep via illegally imported genetic material. By Kyle Melnick
"The Montana rancher’s illegal scheme began in 2012, when he paid for his son to hunt one of the world’s largest sheep species in Kyrgyzstan, court documents say. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth then used parts of the sheep in the following years to breed an even larger hybrid species and sell those animals to hunters.
"Now, Schubarth is set to spend six months in prison for the ploy after pleading guilty to two felony wildlife counts in March. Both counts stemmed from violations of the Lacey Act, a federal conservation law that prohibits interstate sales of falsely labeled animals and sales of animals to states where they’re illegal to own.
...
"Much of the scheme played out at Schubarth’s 215-acre ranch in Vaughn, Mont., where he bred and sold mountain sheep, mountain goats and similar breeds. Schubarth paid for his son to take multiple trips to Kyrgyzstan in 2012 and 2013. In January 2013, Schubarth’s son brought back viable tissue from a Marco Polo argali, a rare and large species native to central Asia, but didn’t declare the materials when he reentered the United States, court documents allege.
...
"Schubarth sought to create an even more valuable species, according to prosecutors. Sheep with larger horns and bodies are worth more to hunters, including at private shooting preserves, where hunters pay to pursue captive game.
...
"Schubarth agreed to a contract with a cloning facility in 2015, and by late the following year, he had 165 cloned embryos of Marco Polo argali. He implanted embryos in his ewes and in May 2017 bred a male argali, who he named Montana Mountain King.
"In the following years, Schubarth bred Montana Mountain King’s semen with other ewe species, creating more hybrid sheep that he sold to captive hunting facilities, mainly in Texas. To do so, he bought Rocky Mountain bighorn sheeps’ testicles, despite Montana prohibiting trade of game animals."
The National Academy of Sciences has just issued a new report on marijuana and public health. Among their recommendations is that bans on research should be rescinded. (Because marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act, it's hard to get permission to study it and its effects...)
Cannabis Policy Impacts Public Health and Health Equity (2024)
The Ottawa Citizen has the story:
The Gosling Effect: How one man (and his liver) forever changed Canadian health care. In 2005, Kevin Gosling became the first living Canadian to anonymously donate an organ to a stranger. It set a cascade of kindness into motion. by Elizabeth Payne
"It had been a long road for the then-46-year-old from Cornwall, Ont. For months, health officials wouldn’t take him seriously when he offered to donate the organ anonymously. We don’t do that here, he was told. Not only that, it had never been done before anywhere in Canada.
"Some top officials in Canada’s leading liver transplant program were adamantly opposed to Gosling’s proposal. They said it was unethical and immoral. They questioned his motives, even his sanity. But Gosling persisted, so far as to undergo months of physical and psychological testing and preparation.
"After more than a year and a half, everything was set to go.
...
"Gosling didn’t know much about the recipient. He only knew that it was a child.
...
"Gosling’s stubborn altruism and unwavering belief that he could make a life-changing difference to someone in desperate need almost single-handedly changed Canada’s health-care system.
"In the 19 years since that fateful day when transplant surgeons removed part of Gosling’s liver and transplanted it into the body of the very ill child, the Toronto General Hospital has completed more than 137 such operations involving people donating anonymously to strangers – more than any other hospital in the world.
...
"He was a pioneer in an area in which Canada is now a world leader – the act of anonymously donating part of a liver – a phenomenon that continues to be met with disbelief in some parts of the world.
...
"Gosling’s offer was turned down multiple times until he was eventually put in touch with the head of the multi-organ transplant program at University Health Network, one of only two hospitals in the country where living liver transplants are now routinely done. Along the way he met health officials who were adamantly opposed to the idea, even citing the Hippocratic oath. (Later, he was told by one staunch opponent that following Gosling’s case had made him change his mind.)"
HT: Colin Rowat
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See also:
Cattral, Mark S., Anand Ghanekar, and Nazia Selzner. "Anonymous living donor liver transplantation: The altruistic strangers." Gastroenterology 165, no. 6 (2023): 1315-1317.
and here are all my posts on nondirected donors: https://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/search/label/nondirected%20donor
The Guardian has the story of a bride-price auction for a child bride in South Sudan:
A teenage bride wed for a record price: the ‘marriage competition’ that divided a nation Underage marriage is illegal in South Sudan yet so commonplace it rarely attracts attention. But the case of Athiak Dau Riak, who her mother says is only 14, has gone viral, polarising her family and the country. by Florence Miettaux
"For months, Marial Garang Jil and Chol Marol Deng, two South Sudanese men in their 40s who come from two different Dinka clans in Jonglei state but now live abroad, had been vying to marry Athiak Dau Riak, a girl her mother says is 14.
...
"After the ceremonial part of the wedding in June, when she was given as a wife to Chol Marol Deng, for a payment of 123 cattle, 120m South Sudanese pounds (about $44,000 or £33,000) in cash and a plot of land, she was dubbed “the most expensive bride in South Sudan” in TikTok videos that gained thousands of likes.
...
"South Sudan’s 2008 Child Act prohibits early and forced marriage, but according to Unicef, child marriage is “still a common practice” and “recent figures indicate that 52% of girls [in South Sudan] are married before they turn 18, with some girls being married off as young as 12 years old”.
"An Edinburgh University-led report on the “brideprice” system in South Sudan says “customary courts often accept menstruation as the criteria for eligibility to marry” and early marriage is “a common practice … likely motivated by families’ ambitions to gain brideprices for their daughters as soon as possible”.
"Globally, 12 million girls are married in childhood every year, according to another Unicef report. Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of young women were married before the age of 18."
Here's a new paper (in final form, online ahead of print) on how organ transplants are regulated. The paper uses an experiment to make several points about the design of current regulations. One of them is that transplant centers are incentivized to be risk averse, since they are measured only by the outcomes of the transplants they perform, and not on the outcomes for patients they decline to transplant (so they are reluctant to transplant risky kidneys or risky patients).
Regulation of Organ Transplantation and Procurement: A Market-Design Lab Experiment by Alex Chan and Alvin E. Roth, Journal of Political Economy, online ahead-of-print .
Abstract: We conduct a lab experiment that shows that current rules regulating transplant centers (TCs) and organ-procurement organizations (OPOs) create perverse incentives that inefficiently reduce both organ recovery and beneficial transplantations. We model the decision environment with a two-player multiround game between an OPO and a TC. In the condition that simulates current rules, OPOs recover only the highest-quality kidneys and forgo valuable recovery opportunities, and TCs decline some beneficial transplants. Alternative regulations that reward TCs and OPOs together for health outcomes in their entire patient pool lead to behaviors that increase organ recovery and appropriate transplants.
Here's what transplants look like in our experimental environment:
The NYT has the story:
California Bans Legacy Admissions at Private Universities. The change will affect Stanford University, the University of Southern California and other private colleges in the state. By Shawn Hubler and Soumya Karlamangla, Sept. 30, 2024
"California will ban private colleges and universities, including some of the nation’s most selective institutions, from giving special consideration to applicants who have family or other connections to the schools, a practice known as legacy admissions.
"Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Monday that will prohibit the practice starting in the fall of 2025.
...
"The University of California, the California State University System and other public California campuses have banned legacy admissions for decades. But private colleges continued to give some preference to the descendants of alumni or major donors.
...
"Only one other state, Maryland, bans legacy preferences at both private and public institutions. Illinois, Virginia and Colorado ban legacy admissions, but only at public universities and colleges.
...
"After the Varsity Blues scandal in 2019, in which parents seeking to win spots in top-ranked schools for their children were found to have paid bribes and falsified their children’s credentials, Mr. Ting tried to push through a bill banning legacy preferences in California. That effort fell short.
"But he did succeed with a measure requiring private colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they admit because of ties to alumni or donors. Those reports showed that the practice was most widespread at Stanford and U.S.C., where, at both schools, about 14 percent of students who were admitted in the fall of 2022 had legacy or donor connections. At Santa Clara University, Mr. Newsom’s alma mater, 13 percent of admissions had such ties.
"Republicans as well as Democrats in the California Legislature voted for Mr. Ting’s latest proposal, which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website. An earlier version had proposed that schools face civil penalties for violating the law, but that provision was removed in the State Senate."
The Golden Goose awards are given each year to "recognize the tremendous human and economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact."
This year they recognize three streams of work, that have led to the recovery of an endangered woodpecker species, to the more effective counting of penguins, and to the invention of neural nets on which the current artificial intelligence industry is based.
Here are those stories.
It’s a Family Affair: The Resurgence of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker AWARDEE: Jeff Walters
From Poop to Protection: Satellite Discoveries Help Save Antarctic Penguins and Advance Wildlife Monitoring AWARDEES: Christian Che-Castaldo, Heather Joan Lynch, Mathew Schwaller
How We Think: Brain-Inspired Models of Human Cognition Contribute to the Foundations of Today’s Artificial Intelligence AWARDEES: Geoffrey Hinton, James L. McClelland, David E. Rumelhart
Here's the first paragraph of the description of this third award (last but not least:)
"Decades before artificial intelligence emerged as the platform for innovation that it is today, David Rumelhart, James McClelland, and Geoffrey Hinton were exploring a new model to explain human cognition. Dissatisfied with the prevailing symbolic theory of cognition, David Rumelhart began to articulate the need for a new approach to modeling cognition in the mid-1970s, teaming up with McClelland with support from the National Science Foundation to create a model of human perception that employed a new set of foundational ideas. At around the same time, Don Norman, an early leader in the field of cognitive science, obtained funding from the Sloan Foundation to bring together an interdisciplinary group of junior scientists, including Hinton, with backgrounds in computer science, physics, and neuroscience. Rumelhart, McClelland, and Hinton led the development of the parallel distributed processing framework, also known as PDP, in the early-1980s, focusing on how networks of simple processing units, inspired by the properties of neurons in the brain, could give rise to human cognitive abilities. While many had dismissed the use of neural networks as a basis for building models of cognition in the 1960s and 1970s, the PDP group revived interest in the approach. Skeptics critiqued the new models too, and had only limited success in enabling effective artificially intelligent systems until the 2010s, when massive increases in the amount of available data and computer power enabled Hinton and others to achieve breakthroughs leading to an explosion of new technological advancements and applications."
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Prior awards included market design in 2013 and 2014.
Jacob Leshno points out this NYT story. He writes "The gist of it is that Citi bike pays to deliver bikes to stations with shortages, and someone figured they could make money by creating artificial shortages."
The Hustlers Who Make $6,000 a Month by Gaming Citi Bikes. The bike-sharing program rewards users who help redistribute bikes around New York City. A few riders have figured out how to turn that into profit. By Christopher Maag (Christopher Maag spent several days in Midtown Manhattan running behind Bike Angels.)
"By monitoring a map of stations on Lyft’s app, they noticed that the algorithm awards points on a sliding scale based on need. Removing a bike from a completely full station: up to four points. Docking at an empty station? That’s worth up to another four. People who move at least four bikes in a 24-hour period get all their points multiplied by a factor of three.
"Lyft pays 20 cents per point. Each ride generates a maximum of 24 points. In perfect conditions, a person on a 3X streak who relocates a bike from a full dock to a completely empty one can earn as much as $4.80 for a single ride.
...
"At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday last month, seven Bike Angels descended on the docking station at Broadway and 53rd Street, across from the Ed Sullivan Theater. Each rider used his own special blue key — a reward from Citi Bike — to unlock a bike. He rode it one block east, to Seventh Avenue. He docked, ran back to Broadway, unlocked another bike and made the trip again.
"By 10:14, the crew had created an algorithmically perfect situation: One station 100 percent full, a short block from another station 100 percent empty. The timing was crucial, because every 15 minutes, Lyft’s algorithm resets, assigning new point values to every bike move.
"The clock struck 10:15. The algorithm, mistaking this manufactured setup for a true emergency, offered the maximum incentive: $4.80 for every bike returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater. The men switched direction, running east and pedaling west."
Paul Milgrom forwards me this account of his testimony as an expert for the defense in the DOJ v Google trial on display ads. Expert testimony is partly theater, and parts of the article read like a theater review.
Google’s Lawyers Pitch Competing Explanation of Ad Bidding, Reframe Case in Strong Day for Defense by Tom Blakely
"Tuesday was dominated by the testimony of Google expert Dr. Paul Milgrom, Professor at Stanford University and the Chairman of “Auctionomics.”
"Dr. Milgrom is Google’s counterweight to the government’s Dr. Ravi.
"As soon as his testimony began, I realized he would be a formidable witness, not just because of his outstanding intellect and subject matter expertise, but because he is the kind of witness that is simply challenging for a counterparty to deal with. An older gentleman, he was equal parts charming, intelligent, poised, unflagging while enduring hours on the stand, and spoke with the quiet confidence and humility of the wisdom of his years.
...
"By presenting with charisma, charm, wit, and as one person described to me during a break, “grandpa vibes,” an outside observer who hails from most of the world’s cultures intrinsically wants to like Prof. Milgrom"
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Yesterday's post also touched on expert witnesses for the defense, from the DOJ's perspective:
Here's a recent NYT column:
The Justice Department’s antitrust chief thinks conflicts of interest are degrading scholarship By Peter Coy
"Are the world’s most powerful corporations buying the brains of economists and legal scholars? It certainly sounds that way if you listen to the chief antitrust enforcer at the Department of Justice.
...
"Kanter didn’t exactly say anything about buying brains. That’s my flourish. What he did say was that “all over the world, money earmarked specifically to discourage antitrust and competition law enforcement is finding its way into the expert community upon which we all depend.
”He even said: “Conflicts of interest and capture have become so rampant and commonplace that it is increasingly rare to encounter a truly neutral academic expert.”
...
"Part of the problem is inadequate disclosure, he said. “If a paper was shadow-funded or influenced by corporate money, it can pass that influence and whatever flaws or biases it introduced into the papers that build on it,” he said. “This insidious ripple effect is difficult — if not nearly impossible — to detect.”
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I'm not sure how big a problem this is, but here's the American Economic Association's code of professional conduct
The American Economic Association holds that principles of professional conduct should guide economists in academia, government, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector.
The AEA's founding purpose of "the encouragement of economic research" requires intellectual and professional integrity. Integrity demands honesty, care, and transparency in conducting and presenting research; disinterested assessment of ideas; acknowledgement of limits of expertise; and disclosure of real and perceived conflicts of interest.
The AEA encourages the "perfect freedom of economic discussion." This goal requires an environment where all can freely participate and where each idea is considered on its own merits. Economists have a professional obligation to conduct civil and respectful discourse in all forums, including those that allow confidential or anonymous participation.
The AEA seeks to create a professional environment with equal opportunity and fair treatment for all economists, regardless of age, sex, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, health condition, marital status, parental status, genetic information, political affiliation, professional status, or personal connections.
Economists have both an individual responsibility for their own conduct, and a collective responsibility to promote professional conduct. These responsibilities include developing institutional arrangements and a professional environment that promote free expression concerning economics. These responsibilities also include supporting participation and advancement in the economics profession by individuals from all backgrounds, including particularly those that have been historically underrepresented.
The AEA strives to promote these principles through its activities.
In October 2017, then-AEA President Alvin E. Roth formed an Ad Hoc Committee to Consider a Code of Professional Conduct, and charged it with evaluating various aspects of professional conduct, including those which stifle diversity in Economics. The ad hoc committee, composed of John Campbell (chair), Marianne Bertrand, Pascaline Dupas, Benjamin Edelman, and Matthew D. Shapiro discussed an interim report and draft code with the AEA Executive Committee at its meeting on January 4, 2018, and provided an update to the AEA membership at the Annual Business Meeting on January 5 in Philadelphia. The interim report and draft code were circulated to the membership in January 2018 with an invitation to submit comments. The draft code was revised in response to more than 200 comments received, and the AEA Executive Committee voted on April 20 to adopt the revised Code. The committee thanks all members who offered feedback on the initial draft and would like to emphasize that it read and considered carefully every comment that was submitted.
To review the interim report from the ad hoc committee, click here.
To review the final report, click here.
Here's a review article on matching for medical residents, with particular attention to neurosurgery, in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science. In specialties that (like neurosurgery) allow applicants to send many signals, many applicants signal to and match with programs with which they have some prior connection.
Ozair, Ahmad, Jacob T. Hanson, Donald K. Detchou, Matthew P. Blackwell, Abigail Jenkins, Marianne I. Tissot, Umaru Barrie et al. "Program Signaling and Geographic Preferences in the United States Residency Match for Neurosurgery." Cureus 16, no. 9 (2024).
Abstract: Postgraduate residency training has long been the cornerstone of academic medicine in the United States. The Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), managed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), is the central residency application platform in the United States for most clinical specialties, with the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) being the algorithm for matching residency programs with applicants. However, the determination of the best fit between ERAS applicants and programs has been increasingly challenged by the rising number of applicants per residency spot. This application overburdening across competitive specialties led to several adverse downstream effects, which affected all stakeholders. While several changes and proposals were made to rectify the issue of application overburdening, the 2020-2021 ERAS Match Cycle finally saw several competitive specialties, including otolaryngology and urology, utilize a new system of supplemental residency application based on preference signals/tokens. These tokens permit applicants to electronically signal a select number of programs in a specialty of choice, with the program reviewing the application now cognizant that they have been signaled, i.e., the applicant has chosen to use up a limited set of signals for their program. Initial results from otolaryngology and urology, as described in this article, indicated the value of this new system to both applicants and educators. Given the favorable outcomes and broader uptake of the system among other specialties, the field of neurosurgery adopted the utilization of the ERAS-based program signaling and geographic preference for the first time for the 2022-2023 Residency Application Cycle and later opted to continue them for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 cycles. For the 2024-2025 Match Cycle, neurosurgery applicants have 25 signals, i.e., a "high-signal" approach, where non-signaled programs have a low interview conversion rate. This literature review discusses the rationale behind the change, the outcomes of other competitive specialties from prior cycles, the evolving nature of the change, and the potential impact on applicants and programs. As we describe in this review, signaling may potentially represent a surrogate form of an application cap. Other considerations relate to cost savings for both applicants and programs from a high-signal approach in neurosurgery. These modifications represent a foundational attempt to alleviate the application overburdening and non-holistic review in the residency application process, including for neurosurgery. While these changes have been a welcomed addition for all stakeholders in residency match cycles so far, further prospectively directed surveys along with qualitative research studies are warranted to better delineate the downstream impact of these changes and guide further optimization of the application system.
This past weekend I streamed a preview of a new movie about living organ donors, kidneys (mostly) and some livers. It's called Abundant, and early in the project it described itself as "a documentary about the human experience of giving."
The movie consists mostly of the stories of donors, the experiences they had, and how they felt and feel about the lives they saved, and their connection to other donors, who are able to share the profound satisfaction that donation has given them. The stories are interspersed with commentary from various kinds of experts. (I was on the preview list since I get a good 60 seconds of commentary:)
The movie is also about chains, starting with kidney exchange chains, since many of the donors are nondirected donors who started chains.
At a more metaphorical level, the movie talks about chains of connections. One of the people they interview is Stephen Dubner, the host of the podcast Freakonomics. He interviewed me on Freakonomics about kidney exchange, that podcast was heard by Ned Brooks, who was moved to donate a kidney (which started a chain) and then to start the National Kidney Donor Organization (NKDO). Dubner interviewed him on Freakonomics too, and those Freakonomics interviews contributed more links to the chain.
This movie is destined to be a link in that chain too.
With more than half a million people on dialysis in the U.S., almost everyone knows or knows of someone who needs a kidney transplant. This is the movie for all of them, with stories that may help them find a donor. And who knows how many people will create new links in that chain.
It's a movie about how generosity creates abundance.
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earlier:
Science (and math) can be self-correcting, sometimes slowly. Here's an article that corrects the first proof that the top trading cycles algorithm is group strategy proof. That's a true result, with multiple subsequent proofs. But apparently the first proof presented wasn't the best one. That's good to know.
One reason this may have taken a long time to spot is that the result is correct, and that there are subsequent proofs that connect the result to properties of other mechanisms.
Will Sandholtz and Andrew Tai, the authors, did this work as Ph.D. students at UC Berkeley. (good for them!)
Group incentive compatibility in a market with indivisible goods: A comment by Will Sandholtz and Andrew Tai
"Highlights
• Bird (1984), first to show top trading cycles is group strategy-proof, has errors.
•We present corrected results and proofs.
•We present a novel proof of strong group strategy-proofness without non-bossiness.
"Abstract: We note that the proofs of Bird (1984), the first to show group strategy-proofness of top trading cycles (TTC), require correction. We provide a counterexample to a critical claim and present corrected proofs in the spirit of the originals. We also present a novel proof of strong group strategy-proofness using the corrected results."
Opt-out is not a panacea for deceased organ donation in countries in which family consent is required for donation.
More families refusing to donate relatives' organs by Lucy Parry, BBC
"An "opt-out" law was introduced in Wales in 2015, followed by England in 2020, Scotland in 2021 and Northern Ireland in 2023.
"It means all adults are considered to have agreed to be potential organ donors when they die, unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in an excluded group.
"The change in law was designed to increase the number of organs available for donation.
"But ultimately families have the final say and the consent rate fell to 61% in the 12 months to April, from 69% four years ago."
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HT: Frank McCormick
Related:
The NYT reports on the question:
Fox Hunters in the U.K. Want Protected Status Under Discrimination Law. A lobbying group is preparing a bid to define hunting with animals as a protected belief. Many experts have questions. By Amelia Nierenberg
"English fox hunters have tried, for years, to push back against a nearly 20-year-old ban on their beloved sport.
"The centuries-old tradition of using packs of dogs to chase and kill foxes — or any wild mammals — became illegal in England in 2005, after a long parliamentary struggle driven by campaigners and lawmakers who opposed it on animal welfare grounds.
"So far, the law has stood, and fox hunting remains hugely unpopular among the general public: 80 percent of people in Britain think it should remain illegal, according to YouGov, a polling company.
"Now, a pro-hunting activist has a new plan of attack.
"Ed Swales, the activist, founded Hunting Kind, a lobby group that aims to protect hunting with dogs and other forms of hunting, in early 2022. He wants to use Britain’s Equality Act — which protects people from discrimination because of their age, race, sexuality or religion, among other things — to classify a pro-hunting stance as a protected belief.
...
“We’ve been doing this for millennia,” he said. Hunting is “literally part of our cultural heritage.”
"Hunting itself is not illegal in England. Shooting deer, rabbits, duck and some other animals is allowed during hunting seasons, with permission from the landowner and a gun license.
...
"Last year, Chief Superintendent Matt Longman, England’s police lead on fox hunting, said that illegal hunting was “still common practice,” with trail hunts frequently taking place in natural fox habitats.
...
"In 2007, a belief in fox hunting was explicitly denied protection in Scotland’s courts, where a judge found that “a person’s belief in his right to engage in an activity which he carries on for pleasure or recreation, however fervent or passionate,” did not compare to protected beliefs or religion, and therefore would not be covered under human rights law.
"And in 2009, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that the ban on fox hunting with dogs did not violate human rights."
Here's yesterday's HRSA press release. (Item 2, Supporting OPTN IT Modernization, might be of most interest to most readers of this blog.)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Health Resources and Services Administration
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HRSA NEWS ROOM
Contact: HRSA PRESS OFFICE
Phone: 301-443-3376
Email: Press@hrsa.gov
As part of the Administration’s efforts,
for the first time in the program’s nearly 40-year history, HRSA has awarded
separate contracts to reform the organ procurement and transplant network.
Multiple vendors will support improving quality and patient safety, modernizing
IT, bolstering communications with patients, and more
Today, the Health Resources and
Services Administration (HRSA) at the Department of Health and Hunan Services
(HHS) announced the first ever multi-vendor contract awards to modernize the
nation’s organ transplant system to improve transparency, performance,
governance, and efficiency of the organ donation and transplantation system for
the more than 100,000 people on the organ transplant waitlist.
The Organ Procurement and
Transplantation Network (OPTN) has long faced critiques about lack of
transparency, potential for conflicts of interest, IT reliability issues and
other structural challenges. As part of the Administration’s transformation of
the OPTN, for the first time in 40 years, multiple contractors will provide
their expertise and proven experience to improve the national organ transplant
system. This transition from a single vendor to multiple vendors to support
OPTN operations is a critical step in advancing innovation in the transplant
system to better serve patients and their families and implements the
bipartisan Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act
signed by the President in September 2023.
“With the life of more than
100,000 Americans at stake, no organ donated for transplantation should go to
waste,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “For too long, our organ
transplant system has fallen short, mired in monopoly. The Biden-Harris
Administration has reformed OPTN to require accountability in the operation of
organ procurement that our transplant patients and their families demand.”
“One person is added to the
waitlist every 10 minutes. Each one relies on and deserves the best care
possible,” said HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson. “Today’s action marks a
significant advancement in the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to
doing what it takes to make sure the nation’s organ matching system works for
patients, donors, and the families who depend on the OPTN for that life-saving
call.”
HRSA is announcing multiple OPTN
modernization awards to support critical actions, including:
In August 2024, HRSA announced
that the OPTN Board of Directors—the governing board that develops national
organ allocation policy—is now separately incorporated and independent from the
Board of longtime OPTN contractor, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
HRSA awarded an OPTN Board Support contract to a new vendor, American
Institutes for Research, to support the newly incorporated OPTN Board of
Directors.
HRSA launched the OPTN
Modernization Initiative in March 2023, including making proposals to reform
the decades old OPTN statute and increase funding for the program to better
serve patients and families. Within a year, HRSA worked closely with bipartisan
leaders in Congress to secure passage of the Securing the U.S. OPTN Act and
substantially boost funding to support modernization efforts. Today’s awards
represent a key step forward in this work.
###########
Here's the full list (from OrangeSlices AI):
14 Prime awardees named for $440M in HHS HRSA OPTN Operations Transition IDIQs
The total ceiling for Domain 1 is $30M, Domain 2 is $145M, Domain 3 is $235M, and Domain 4 is $40M. The following awardee information is provided for the HRSA procurement:
1. ABT GLOBAL
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 1 – $30M
2. ARBOR RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE FOR HEALTH
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 1 – $30M
3. GUIDEHOUSE DIGITAL LLC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 1, 2, 4 – $215M
4. MAXIMUS FEDERAL SERVICES
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 1, 2 – $175M
5. RAND CORPORATION
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 1 – $30M
6. CUSTOMER VALUE PARTNERS
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 2, 4 – $185M
7. GENERAL DYNAMICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 2, 3 – $380M
8. KPMG LLP
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 2 – $145M
9. UNITED NETWORK FOR ORGAN SHARING
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 2 – $145M
10. ACCENTURE FEDERAL SERVICES LLC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 3 – $235M
11. LEIDOS INC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 3 – $235M
12. SAPIENT GOVERNMENT SERVICES INC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 3 – $235M
13. DELOITTE CONSULTING LLP
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 4 – $40M
14. HIGHLIGHT TECHNOLOGIES INC
Total IDIQ Maximum Not to Exceed/Ceiling: Domain 4 – $40M
The IDIQs include a base ordering period of one year staring on 9/25/2024 and 4 option periods.
Solicitation: 75R60224R0008, OPTN Operations Transition Indefinite-Delivery-Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ)
Agency: HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
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