Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Organ donation after circulatory determination of death (DCD) has increased the number of organs for transplantation in children and adults. However, important questions regarding DCD remain, preventing broader uptake. To begin to answer these questions we will bring together diverse research, clinical practice, and policy communities from Canada and abroad for a 2-day planning meeting to identify research priorities and form a strong, expanding, international collaboration. Research on DCD involves studying critically ill, dying patients in the intensive care unit, a challenging time period and environment that present practical, technical and ethical challenges to the collection of quality data. Our interdisciplinary research group (www.ddepict.com) has planned, successfully obtained funding, and completed a small prospective pilot study of the physiology of death after withdrawal of life sustaining therapies. Our larger prospective study, "Death Prediction and Physiology after Removal of Therapy (DePPaRT)," is now funded and is ongoing as part of the Canadian National Transplant Research Program. The strength and success of our prospective research on DCD has attracted international attention, as other countries seek solutions and consensus about their donation programs and policies. We are seeking CIHR's community support to expand and strengthen our research group by assembling a diverse group of national and international experts to focus on priority questions related to improving the practice of DCD. The expansion and strengthening of an interdisciplinary, international collaboration provides our Canadian team an opportunity to be a leader in this field, and to learn from the successes and challenges faced in other countries. This collaboration will identify strategies to translate research results into DCD policy and effective practice in Canada and abroad.