Tissue Donors in Regional Hospitals: A Reality

Progress in transplantation means the process of procuring both human organ and tissues has become a daily challenge. Considering that tissues are usually procured from organ donors who have suffered brain death or after controlled cardiac death, the tissue procurement is done mainly in major hospitals. With the aim of highlighting the potential role of regional hospitals in tissue donation, a prospective descriptive study was carried out of all the patients who died at the Regional Hospital of Inca in Mallorca (Spain) from January 2013 to August 2018. To ensure an early detection of all possible tissue donors, the hospital has implemented a computerized alert system that is activated immediately after a patient dies. This strategy has proven to be very useful as in the analyzed period, the hospital had an average of 280 donors per million population, which is one of the highest rates of cornea donation among the Spanish hospitals. Our data and experience show the important role of regional hospitals in tissue donation and the value of implementing screening programs and early selection of potential tissue donors.