Improving Transplant Program Performance Monitoring

Purpose of Review This review will describe the authority to and the process by which the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Membership and Process Standards Committee develops new metrics to monitor transplant program performance. A new conceptual paradigm will be proposed to more holistically evaluate performance. Recent Findings The discussion around which metrics are suitable to monitor transplant program performance has been robust. The current metric of post-transplant patient and graft survival is outdated and may be incentivizing unwanted behaviors. There have been many new metrics proposed. However very few meet the necessary criteria of falling within the domain of authority of the OPTN, having reliable and reproducibly measured data, having a clearly defined and desired outcome, and being an outcome that the transplant program can impact independently of other components of the transplant system. Better and more modern metrics are needed to more holistically monitor transplant program performance.