Donor Action program in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

Context: The high demand for organs for transplantation necessitates enhancement of organ procurement activity worldwide.

Objective: To detect critical areas in the organ donation process and to assess whether careful monitoring of deaths in each intensive care unit could improve rates of identification of brain death.

Design: Records of patients who died in intensive care units in the Emilia-Romagna region between July 1, 1998 and June 30, 2000 were reviewed through the Donor Action program.

Improving donor identification with the Donor Action programme.

The increasing demand for organs for transplantation entails a consensual need for enhancement of organ procurement activity. As organ donors reside mainly in hospital intensive care units (ICUs), the Donor Action programme is aimed at identifying critical areas in ICUs, in order to improve the first step of organ donation. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the problem of identification of potential donors by means of a chart revision of patients who died in 14 ICUs in the Emilia-Romagna region between 1 July 1998 and 31 December 2000.