The role of the Emergency Medical Services in organ donation.

A potential need for more organ donors has been identified because of the improved survival rates of patients receiving kidney transplants and the reports of improving graft success rates. Because of the development of the EMS trauma program, an awareness of the potential benefit for increased organ donation could be realized by improved working relationship of the EMS trauma unit and the organ recovery agency. In the final analysis, careful planning of a regionwide program for organ recovery by the organ retrieval groups to include the EMS trauma unit should result in an increased number of cadaveric kidneys for transplantation.