How to evaluate organ donation: the quality programme in Tuscany.

The shortage of cadaveric organ donors imposes a severe limit on the number of patients who can benefit from transplantation. This paper describes a programme for evaluation and improvement of the organ donation process, which has been implemented in the hospitals of the Tuscany region, Italy. After analysing the first results it was found that there was great potential for growth, especially in those hospitals with neurosurgery where the weakest points of the process were detected The development of a quality improvement programme in cadaveric organ donation is an adequate and scientific method to detect where the problems in the process of organ donation lie. Ideally, the comparison of these data with those of other Italian or European regions should be very useful to plan adequate strategies to improve cadaveric organ donation.