Improving Organ Donation and Transplantation in the European Union

Assessing the Impacts of European Action

by Jan Tiessen, Annalijn Conklin, Barbara Janta, Lila Rabinovich, Han de Vries, Evi Hatziandreu, Bhanu Patruni, Tom Ling

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Due to rapid advances in transplantation medicine, the use of human organs for transplantation has steadily increased during the past decades. Organ transplantation is now the most cost-effective treatment for end-stage renal failure and the only available, life-saving treatment for end-stage failure of organs such as liver, lung and heart. The advancement of transplantation medicine has led, however, to a shortage in available organs and poses new quality and safety challenges. Against this background the European Commission aims to improve the availability of organs, ensure their quality and safety, and make transplantation systems more efficient and accessible through European action. In this context the European Commission commissioned RAND Europe to provide support for assessing the impacts of four policy options to improve organ donation and transplantation in the European Union. By taking into account the evidence on possible health, economic and social impacts, this report thus weighs the costs and benefits of the proposed policy options and supports the identification of a preferred policy option to meet DG SANCO's objectives. The qualitative analysis in this report is supplemented by a scenario modelling and benchmarking exercise to address some of the inherent uncertainties related to an impact assessment of relatively broad policy options.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter One

    Introduction and Methodology

  • Chapter Two

    Problem Definition: Organ Donation and Transplantation — European Challenges

  • Chapter Three

    Policy Objectives

  • Chapter Four

    Policy Options

  • Chapter Five

    Analysis of Impacts

  • Chapter Six

    Comparing the Policy Options

  • Chapter Seven

    Monitoring and Evaluation

  • Chapter Eight

    Conclusions

  • Appendix A

    Medical Background Information

  • Appendix B

    Scenario Methodology

  • Appendix C

    Scenario Results

Research conducted by

The research described in this report was prepared for the European Commission and was conducted by RAND Europe. The opinions expressed in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

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