Zero risk tolerance costs lives: loss of transplantable organs due to human immunodeficiency virus nucleic acid testing of potential donors.

Patients' deaths due to the organ donor shortage make it imperative that every suitable organ be transplanted. False-positive results of tests for infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) result in lost organs. A survey of US organ procurement organizations collected the numbers of donors and ruled-out potential donors who had a positive result on an HIV test from January 1,2006, to October 31, 2008.

Vital role of medical examiners and coroners in organ transplantation.

Many people die owing to the shortage of donor organs. Medical examiners and coroners (MEs/Cs) play a vital role in making organs available for potential recipients. Medical examiners'/coroners' case data were collected using a structured confirmatory-recorded methodology for calendar years 2000-01 and were linked and analyzed with donor and transplant data from the United Network for Organ Sharing, predicting the nature and extent of the loss of donor organs.

Estimating the number of potential organ donors in the United States.

Background: As the need for transplantable organs increases, waiting lists of patients become longer. We studied the size and composition of the national pool of brain-dead organ donors during a three-year period and, on the basis of these data, considered ways to increase the rate of donation.

Methods: We reviewed hospital medical records of deaths occurring in the intensive care unit from 1997 through 1999 in the service areas of 36 organ-procurement organizations to identify brain-dead potential organ donors.

Ethical analysis of organ recovery denials by medical examiners, coroners, and justices of the peace.

Context: Despite its pivotal nature, until the early 1990s the role of medical examiners, coroners, and justices of the peace was largely ignored in discussions of the critical shortage of organs for transplantation in the United States. These officials have the right to determine, from a medico-legal perspective, whether a deceased person can be an organ donor. Thus, they play an important role in the donation process.

Disaster recovery planning by HMOs: theoretical insights.

HMOs are becoming increasingly reliant on health management information systems (HMISs) for their effective functioning, competitive viability, and survival. Because of this critical dependence, HMOs must use disaster recovery planning (DRP) to safeguard their HMIS assets from natural as well as man-made disasters. This article purposes a theoretical framework, based on the theory of organizational innovation, to explain the factors involved in the adoption of DRP by HMOs.