Emergency Notification For Donor Coordination
New York, NY --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- January 11, 2006 - Send Word Now, an emergency notification and incident management service, has recently signed an agreement with United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to collaboratively build and deliver electronic notifications of available organs between the transplant and organ procurement communities. Send Word Now will offer web services and technology support to UNOS in order to decrease the time it takes donor coordinators to communicate with transplant teams.
"The Send Word Now service helps organizations with time-critical communications and coordination," said Mitchell Orlowsky, President and CEO of Send Word Now. "We believe that our service will help to dramatically improve the placement of organs with patients by more effectively transmitting the time-critical data that is necessary to successfully complete the organ transplant process."
According to UNOS'Assistant Executive Director for Technology Berkeley Keck, "Electronic notification will replace individual phone calls, and donor data posted on UNOS' secure site will replace faxing the same information to multiple transplant centers. The time it takes to place an organ will be reduced substantially."
UNOS'Organ Center staff and procurement coordinators at Organ Procurement Organizations will use Send Word Now's delivery tool to distribute notifications about organ offers to transplant centers using phone- and text-based communications devices. E-mail and text messages will include URL links to UNOS'secure web pages containing medical information about the donor and the organ being offered. Transplant team members can follow these links to view the information they need to decide whether to accept an organ for the patient to whom it is being offered.
"By the beginning of 2007, transplant centers will respond electronically to organ offers. We hope to increase survival rates by considerably reducing the time it takes to place each organ," said Keck.
About UNOS
A private, nonprofit organization, UNOS manages the nation's organ transplant system and oversees the world's most comprehensive database of clinical transplant information under contract with the federal government. UNOS operates the 24-hour computerized organ sharing system, matching donated organs to patients registered on the national organ transplant waiting list. UNOS seeks to increase organ donation through education and improve transplant success rates through outcomes-based research and policymaking. Transplant scientists and health officials recognize UNOS-developed technology applications as the international model for organ sharing.
Press Contacts:
UNOS News Bureau
804-782-4730
newsroom@unos.org
