MELD and liver allocation: Continuous quality improvement

MELD-based liver allocation: who is underserved?

Deceased-donor livers are a scarce, lifesaving resource. For patients whose lives depend upon liver transplantation, policies for prioritizing allograft allocation are of ultimate importance. In the current paradigm, donor livers are allocated on the basis of medical urgency. Thus, the onus is on the transplant community to refine the allocation system continuously so that livers are targeted t...

MELD and PELD: application of survival models to liver allocation.

In 1998, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued the final rule,1 in which the principles of organ allocation were defined, to govern the operation of the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN). This rule included the following guidelines for organ allocation: (1) organs should be allocated to transplant candidates in the order of medical urgency; (2) the role of wait...

MELD-based allocation scheme for liver transplantation in Israel.

Continuous quality improvement, total quality management, and reengineering: one hospital's continuous quality improvement journey.

In recent years, there has been significantly increasing interest in the application of continuous quality improvement (CQI) and total quality management (TQM) in the health care arena. This case analysis is designed to identify and assess the strategies and processes that led to the successful implementation of CQI in the Emergency Care Center at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI.

Liver transplantation: expectation with MELD score for liver allocation in Brazil.

Liver transplantation represents the most effective therapy for patients suffering from chronic end-stage liver disease. Until very recently, in Brazil, liver allocation was based on the Child-Turcotte-Pugh score and the waiting list followed a chronological criterion. In February 2002 the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score was adopted for the allocation of donor livers in the US. A...