Cerner EHR Integration Automates Organ Donor Data Exchange

EHR vendor Cerner has partnered with health IT company Transplant Connect on an EHR integration that aims to streamline data exchange for organ donor referrals. 

The health IT company expedites potential organ, tissue, and eye donor referrals to boost recipient matches and promote timely organ donation. 

The EHR integration is also expected to decrease clinician burden by reducing the number of hours spent on the donor referral process. 

"This integration is a prime example of how health systems can talk to one another, which helps eliminate manual bottlenecks that drain time and resources," Sam Lambson, vice president of interoperability at Cerner, said in a press release. 

"Our goal is to provide resources that not only help doctors and nurses deliver more efficient, better care, but improve the lives of their patients. Simplifying the transplant process helps everyone at every stage,” Lambson continued. 

Per CMS guidelines,  hospitals  must  provide  timely  notifications to the  designated  organ-procurement organizations (OPOs)  of every potential organ, tissue, and eye donor. 

The technology automates this process by delivering real-time donor identification and referral data from Cerner Millennium EHR to the iTransplant Donor Management Platform. 

Through this process, the health IT identifies potential donors and seamlessly refers them to OPOs via an electronic "organ donation order" where all applicable information is sent to the OPO’s iTransplant Donor Management System.

The integration then sends back a notification confirming that the data have been received by the OPO.

Healthcare providers currently conduct much of the donor referral process over the phone. This manual data exchange can lead to errors in the EHR. The automated process is expected to streamline the organ donation workflow. 

"Cerner's initiative and commitment to this integration will help to drive the important paradigm shift away from inefficient, phone-based processes in favor of near real-time automation,” said John Piano, founder and chief executive officer of Transplant Connect. 

“Our success here stands to positively impact thousands of hospitals while improving and expediting critical steps in the donation process and increasing lives saved and healed through transplantation,” he added.     

The health IT vendors launched the new EHR integration at five hospitals. 

“This new solution helps to expedite the approval process for a potential organ procurement and ultimately a timely donation to a prospective patient,” noted Jenifer Hagovsky, an intensive care unit director at a hospital in Madison, Alabama. 

The need for good donors is significant across the country. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, more than 106,000 adults and children are currently on the organ transplant waiting list.