New referral system automatically identifies potential donors and streamlines the hospital-to-OPO referral process.
Cleveland Clinic Florida’s Indian River Hospital and OurLegacy, the federally designated Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) serving central eastern Florida, have collaborated to successfully deploy a new fully automated donor referral system to streamline the process for hospital staff to identify and evaluate potential organ, tissue and eye donors. The donation-transplant software, provided by InVita Healthcare Technologies, was launched at Cleveland Clinic Florida’s Indian River Hospital in April 2023.
With over 100,000 patients on the nation’s waitlist awaiting a life-saving organ, regulations from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) exist requiring referral of all prospective organ and tissue donors to their federally designated Organ Procurement Organization. The new fully automated donor referral process streamlines the workflow for hospital staff identifying and evaluating potential organ, tissue, and eye donors.
Following the implementation of a successful automated referral system at 18 Cleveland Clinic facilities in Ohio, the model is now live at Cleveland Clinic Florida’s Indian River Hospital.
Since the implementation of the streamlined system in Ohio, more than 3,000 nursing hours have been saved and organ referrals have increased by 42% based on annualized data.
“We are so grateful for our community partners who help us steward the Gift of Life,” said Ginny McBride, Executive Director of OurLegacy Organ & Tissue Donation. “This expanded launch provides our clinical partners the gift of time. This technology will seamlessly connect all who play a part in saving lives through donation and ensure the timely opportunity for a family to leave a legacy of life for others after suffering sudden and unimaginable loss. This smart, automated system will not only save precious time for clinical partners but improve the complex donation experience for the families we care for.”
“It’s exciting to see our interoperability solutions scale and expand support across expansive healthcare networks,” said Todd Collins, President & CEO of InVita Healthcare Technologies. “We’re thrilled with Cleveland Clinic’s and OurLegacy’s launch to streamline and improve the critical donor referral process.”
About Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital | clevelandclinicflorida.org
Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital, part of Cleveland Clinic’s regional health system in Florida, is a 322 bed hospital in Vero Beach and offers comprehensive medical services to the Treasure Coast community. One of Cleveland Clinic’s five hospitals in Florida, Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital is dedicated to achieving excellent outcomes. Guided by a Patients First philosophy, healthcare professionals represent specialties including orthopaedics, heart and vascular medicine, neurosurgery, stroke, gastroenterology, bariatrics and labor and delivery. With locations across Indian River County that include outpatient facilities, urgent care centers and a diagnostic center, Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital has a 24-hour emergency department. Cleveland Clinic’s regional health system in Florida is an integral part of Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where providing outstanding patient care is based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Physicians at Cleveland Clinic are experts in the treatment of complex conditions that are difficult to diagnose. For more information, visit our website. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
About OurLegacy | ourlegacyfl.org
OurLegacy is the federally designated organ procurement organization for 10 counties across east-Central Florida. Together with our community, OurLegacy cares for families, honors donors and saves lives through organ and tissue donation.
About InVita Healthcare Technologies | invitahealth.com
InVita provides mission-critical and chain-of-custody software technologies for complex medical, forensic, and community care environments. InVita’s solutions streamline clinical workflows, optimize supply chains, sample tracking, and visibility across donation and transplantation, blood and plasma operations, the tissue and implant lifecycle, and environments spanning DNA and forensics. InVita continues to expand the iReferral® and iTransplant® platforms supporting nearly 75% of all OPOs in the United States and used by more than 15,000 medical professionals across more than 100 organ, tissue, eye, and birth tissue organizations around the world.
