Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Background: Performance assessment of international organ donation programs is often limited to easily obtained quality indicators such as organ retrieval rates. While these measures are important they fail to provide explanatory evidence for the variation in rates, making it difficult to plan and implement improvement strategies. The organ donation and retrieval is complex and multi-factorial. To optimize performance, we need to understand the nature and impact of these complex factors. Some factors are well known and might not be modifiable, such as family refusals for religious reasons, contra-indications for transplant, age limit of organ donor, etc. However, factors that contribute to variations among hospitals within similar provincial guidelines and structure are poorly understood. Methods: The purpose of this exploratory, prospective, diagnostic study is: (1) To describe the characteristics of social networks among health care professionals within a sample of organ donation programs in Ontario utilizing a Social Network Analysis - SNA approach, (2) To describe the organizational attributes and processes of organ donation programs in Ontario utilizing a multiple case-study approach, and (3) To compare the influence of social networks and organizational attributes on the performance of organ donation programs in Ontario utilizing a network comparison approach. The study will include at least five Ontario trauma centres partners of the Ontario's Organ Procurement Organization. Data will be collected during a 2-month period in the intensive care units and/or emergency rooms of each participant hospital. Expected outcomes: This research will contribute to the scientific community by providing a novel diagnostic measure of the performance of organ donation programs and will contribute findings to inform quality interventions relevant to the organ donation processes.