Boosting Organ Donation: Increasing the Supply of Donated Organs

In the realm of organ donation, securing a transplant can be a critical matter of survival.

Each year, this medical intervention grants extended life to numerous individuals battling severe or end-stage illnesses. The availability, compatibility, and proximity of these life-saving resources play a crucial role in offering patients a newfound lease on life. However, the scarcity of organs complicates the scenario, as they cannot simply be purchased, cultivated, or synthetically produced.

The intricate process of organ donation involves extracting organs from one individual and implanting them in another. Given the limitations of live donations, many organs are only suitable for transplantation posthumously.

While the intricate ethical and logistical challenges of allocating a limited number of transplant organs to an expanding list of patients have garnered significant attention, the crucial aspect of organ procurement remains comparatively understudied.

“In the field of operations research, economics, and applied computer science, considerable attention has been dedicated to the allocation of donated organs,” shared Hammaad Adam, a graduate student within MIT’s Social and Engineering Systems (SES) doctoral program at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). “Conversely, the origins of these vital organs have received less scholarly scrutiny.”

In the United States, organ procurement organizations (OPOs), non-profits, perform the vital role of identifying and assessing potential donors, liaising with bereaved families and hospital authorities, and procuring and distributing organs within the confines of federal regulations. Studies indicate that numerous inefficiencies and barriers impede the collection of thousands of organs annually, despite the escalating demand for transplants.

“Transparent data on organ procurement has been scarce,” emphasized Adam. Collaborating with MIT computer science professors Marzyeh Ghassemi and Ashia Wilson, and engaging with stakeholders in the organ procurement domain, Adam spearheaded the creation of the ORCHID dataset: Organ Retrieval and Collection of Health Information for Donation. This repository encapsulates a decade of clinical, financial, and administrative data from six OPOs.

“Our primary objective for the ORCHID database is to revolutionize the comprehension of organ procurement, both internally and externally,” articulated Ghassemi.

The drive to effect change through his contributions led Adam to SES and MIT. Armed with a background in applied mathematics and a stint in strategic consulting, he found his niche in tackling issues with technological underpinnings.

“I yearned for the intellectually stimulating challenges in statistics and machine learning during my consulting tenure,” reminisced Adam. “This inspired me to pursue a master’s in data science, where I immersed myself in various academic ventures spanning biology, management science, and public policy. I gravitated towards social science-centric projects that yielded immediate impacts.”

As an SES graduate student, Adam’s research delves into leveraging statistical methodologies to unveil healthcare disparities and crafting machine learning tools to rectify them. “A segment of my doctoral work revolves around crafting tools that foster equity in clinical trials and other randomized experiments,” he elucidated.

A recent project undertaken by Adam centered on devising a novel method to halt clinical trials prematurely if a treatment inadvertently harms a minority subset of participants. “Additionally, I’ve been contemplating strategies to bolster minority participation in clinical trials through enhanced patient recruitment,” he added.

Racial disparities persist in healthcare, extending to the domain of organ transplantation where non-white individuals constitute a disproportionately high number of patients on the waitlist. However, due to uncharted barriers, organ donations from these communities remain limited, necessitating a deeper comprehension to surmount obstacles.

“My research initially concentrated on the allocation dynamics within organ transplantation,” divulged Adam. “Our ongoing study scrutinized the influence of a patient’s race on the acceptance of heart, liver, and lung transplant offers by physicians. Notably, patients of Black race encountered significantly lower odds of organ acceptance, raising concerns about potential biases within the transplantation process.”

Adam’s investigations further unveiled a notable correlation between the compatibility of donor-candidate races and an augmented likelihood of offer acceptance. He stressed the critical importance of organ donations from racial minority groups, stressing the imperative to expedite equitable organ procurement practices.

Through collaborative initiatives with stakeholders in the OPO arena, catalyzed by the IDSS Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism, Adam discovered a unique opportunity to not only optimize healthcare efficiency but also promote equity within the healthcare spectrum.

“It’s the prospect of influencing both healthcare efficiency and equity that captivated my interest in this realm of inquiry,” Adam concluded.