Making good choices of DBM products
With their array of gels, pastes, and putties, demineralized bone matrix (DBM) products are a confusing area. What questions can your OR team ask to help make good product choices? OR Manager talked with experts who outlined issues to consider. Suggested questions to ask companies are in the sidebar on…
Donor screening: First step in safety
Screening of tissue donors is a critical step in ensuring tissue safety. Screening is a complex, multidisciplinary process that begins every time a family says "yes" to the option of donation and ends when tissue is released for transplant. Tissue banks vary in what is considered a suitable donor. Regulating…
Allografts: Overview of the process
Like organ donation, tissue donation is an end-of-life gift that can save or enhance the lives of 50 people, often many more. Donated human tissue, also called allografts, can be used in a variety of replacement, reconstructive, or regenerative surgical procedures. Beginning with an individual's decision to donate, each step…
Fine-tuning tissue management
Managing allograft tissue is a challenge for a single facility. Developing a tissue management process for a health system takes the challenge to a new level. That was the situation facing the Moses Cone Health System, Greensboro, North Carolina, which has 7 surgical sites on 6 campuses. During a Joint…
Being prepared for donation after cardiac death
Depending on your perspective, donation after cardiac death (DCD) is a welcome boost for organ donation or an ethical quagmire. Trends in donation after cardiac death Donation after cardiac death accounts for a small but growing number of organ donations. Because each donor often provides mutliple organs, DCD might make…
Tissue-tracking requirements: Putting all the pieces together
If you receive a recall letter from a tissue supplier, how quickly could you identify which patients received that tissue? If one of your surgeons reports an infection in a patient who received a tissue graft, how will you follow up? Tracking of tissue is a patient safety issue—consider the…
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