Blockchain in organ donation (Part 82)
Welcome to the 82nd part of the 100-part series on Blockchain.
Donating an organ or organs is one of the most noble acts of humanity, as it saves the lives of those suffering from chronic illnesses and requires organ transplantation for their survival. When the human body gets infected by a disease, sometimes the crucial organs in the body, such as the kidney, liver, lungs, pancreas, etc., become nonfunctional and which sometimes even leads to death. To minimize such incidents and save these precious lives, organ donation is a crucial requirement. But getting an organ transplant is one of the most stressful things someone can go through.
During the course of receiving a transplant, one has to go through a lot of issues ranging from the lack of donations to the difficulty of finding the matching donors. In times of emergency, when an organ is needed urgently, sometimes donors can’t be found, and decisions can’t be made in time.
Let’s take an example of a kidney transplant. The average waiting time for a kidney transplant in the US is 3 to 5 years, and during this time, patients have to go through an onerous process of dialysis at least 3 times a week, negatively impacting their normal social and work-life balance. Being on dialysis is expensive, and on top of that, the illness may worsen while waiting for a transplant, and in the worst case, the patient may even die. In this scenario, one option for transplants is a deceased donor or, in simple words, a donor who is no longer alive. And the second option for transplants is a living donor; someone the patient knows, it could be his family member or friend who is willing to give him a kidney. Unfortunately, many factors like blood type and HLAs need to be the same, and these people may not be a match even if they wish to donate their kidney to the patient.
In the majority of the cases, the patients are not able to find the matching donors because of the lack of proper ways of communicating with the donors. Therefore the need for connecting organ donors and recipients has been more critical than ever.
Enter Blockchain
Blockchain technology can provide a solution by facilitating the creation of a proper communication system between the recipient and the organ donor. The information about a donor can be stored on the Blockchain platform, which can then be shared with all the hospitals, and the data can be made available to the patients who are in need.
One of the major advantages of such a system will be its power to match a mismatched pair of a donor and a receiver with another appropriate mismatched pair of a donor and a receiver and thus making the transplant feasible for both of the receivers. To understand it clearly, let’s take an example.
Suppose there are two patients, Steve and Robert, who need a kidney transplant. Bob wants to donate his kidney to Steve, but Bob’s kidney does not match Steve’s. However, it meets the requirement of Robert. On the other hand, Alice wants to donate her kidney to Robert, but her kidney does not match Robert’s, but it meets the requirement of Steve, who needs a kidney as well. In this scenario, the blockchain-powered platform can play a crucial role in matching a donor to an appropriate receiver. In this case, the platform can match Steve and Alice, and Alice can donate her kidney to Steve. On the other hand match between Robert and Bob will be made where Bob can donate his kidney to Robert. Thus at a time, two lives can be saved by the information on this platform.
Therefore a blockchain-powered platform can provide a facilitated way to match availability with demand and can provide a reliable and easy way to check the compatibility among organ donors and recipients. In the proposed system, the doctor can enter the patient’s data for a transplant and enter the needed information to find a match.
TransplantChain is a blockchain-based platform that helps healthcare facilities find a match for kidney transplants.
The transplantation of healthy organs into patients whose own organs have failed can improve and save thousands of lives every year. But demand for organs has outstripped supply, creating an underground market for illicitly obtained organs. Organ trafficking, also defined as ‘illegal organ trade’ describes the phenomenon of trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal. It is estimated that 10 percent of all organ transplants including lungs, heart and liver, are done via trafficked organs. However, the most prominent organs that are traded illicitly are kidneys, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that 10,000 kidneys are traded on the black market worldwide annually, or more than one every hour. Traffickers arrange the recruitment of the donor often from a place of vulnerability, like a poor neighborhood or country. Moreover, these victims are not even properly screened for their qualifications to be healthy donors. Desperate patients in need of an organ may fall prey to a trafficker who could be posing as a “reputable” representative of an altruistic organ-matching organization. Most of these illegally harvested organs do not pass through the standard screening process before a transplant is performed. This exposes the recipient to several, often fatal, infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, and other blood-borne infections.
To tackle this illegal organ trading, Blockchain can be a great tool. Blockchain technology can improve transparency and traceability of the whole donation process, thus helping in the fight against organ trafficking.
In February 2019, the UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) announced a blockchain-enabled mobile app, Hayat, to improve the process of organ donation in the UAE and to reduce organ trafficking.
Under this proposed system, all UAE citizens will be registered on the blockchain healthcare platform. Each citizen will have a unique ID, and his DNA will also be recorded on the Blockchain. His/her name, gender, blood type, and other health information, pledging organs for donation will also be recorded on the Blockchain platform. The shared ledger will also contain information about both nationals and expatriates who express their wish to donate organs after their death. The blockchain organ donation database will be linked and shared with all hospitals that carry out organ transplant operations in the United Arab Emirates. If a registered resident is declared clinically dead following an accident or illness, doctors at the hospital will have consent through the blockchain and will be able to harvest organs pledged for donation. Recipients who are a likely match can also be identified via details stored on the blockchain platform.
With this initiative, UAE hospitals will also be able to verify whether the DNA of the organ they have matches with the DNA information of the organ donor on the blockchain. All the medical information about the donors will be available on the blockchain, that will help hospitals to know if the donor was fit for donating organs or not. This transparency in the medical ecosystem will help in knowing which organs are trafficked and which organs are actually donated by volunteers with their consent. Therefore this initiative will not only improve the healthcare sector by optimizing organ transplant procedures but will also play a great role in reducing organ trafficking.
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