Computer to prioritize patients according to their medical needs

The top health authority is set to issue a regulation ordering mandatory use of a computerized organ allocation system by hospitals in a bid to ensure transparent and fair allocation of organ donations, according to a senior official.

Huang Jiefu, former vice-minister of health, told China Daily in an exclusive interview that the regulation will enhance the efficiency of organ sharing and save more needy patients' lives.

Huang, head of the organ transplant committee of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, made the comments in response to concerns over fairness after reports said that only one-third of the nation's public organ donations had been allocated by the system.

"Organ allocation is in fact life allocation, and people won't donate without fair practices," he said.

Wang Haibo, director of the China Organ Transplant Response System Research Center at the University of Hong Kong, said the policy was developed after research based on dozens of countries' allocation policies and several discussions with Chinese experts and officials.

"We are looking forward to the coming regulation being forceful and strong enough to better supervise donated organ procurement and allocation," he said.

The computerized allocation system will automatically rank all waiting patients according to medical factors like disease severity, waiting time and distance from donors, then quickly single out the best recipient.

"All out-of-system allocations will be banned, and hospitals caught with irregularities will face punishment including suspension from practice or even license revocation," he noted.

Wang was on the national organ donation expert committee that drafted the regulation.

China has so far realized at least 700 public organ donations from the deceased, according to Gao Xinpu, a division director of the National Organ Donation Management Center under the Red Cross Society of China.

The Red Cross and the National Health and Family Planning Commission operate a national organ donation system to facilitate organ donations after death and to ease a serious shortage of organs for transplant.

Gao said equipment limitations and poor awareness were the main reasons that only one-third of donations were allocated by the system.

However, the other two-thirds were allocated according to similar principles, he pointed out.

According to Gao, hospitals that detect donors and obtain donations are now favored during the allocation.