Organ Procurement Coordinator

Albany Medical Center • Albany, NY

9d • Onsite

About The Position

The Organ Procurement Coordinator performs a variety of duties directly or indirectly related to increasing the availability of suitable organs and tissues for transplantation. These duties include identification and management of the organ donor; placement of the organs; operating room responsibilities during the procurement process; and post organ donation debriefing. Duties may also include hospital and community education and development to increase organ and tissue donor awareness when assigned. This role requires participation in a rotating call schedule, carrying a smartphone, and working hours dictated by donor activity, which may exceed fifty percent of days in the month. Travel by company vehicle, personal vehicle, small and medium sized chartered planes, helicopters, and chartered limousine services is required. The coordinator must maintain professional relationships with various healthcare professionals, donor families, and other stakeholders, while ensuring confidentiality and managing time effectively for assigned tasks and educational programs. They are responsible for completing assigned work and seeking assistance when needed, while adhering to department policies regarding scheduled work time. The role also involves hospital and community education to promote organ and tissue donation awareness, including developing educational plans, coordinating programs, and establishing communication with community organizations. Key responsibilities include identifying potential donors, documenting information in the DonorTrac Electronic Medical Record, obtaining legal authorization from families, managing organ donor clinical care, allocating organs to transplant centers, coordinating surgical recovery, and following up with donor hospitals. Office duties include attending daily huddles, case reviews, and after-action reviews, as well as participating in quality improvement processes and completing donor charts.

Requirements

• Must participate in a rotating call schedule and carry a smart phone
• Call may exceed fifty percent of days in the month
• Business hours and hours worked are dictated by donor activity
• In the event of heavy case load, all efforts will be made to utilize staff listed on the call schedule
• In the event cases cannot be adequately staffed by those on-call, staff not on-call will be contacted and required to work
• The AOC will decide when to utilize staff not on call
• Reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate the needs of off-call staff being called in, however case load factors may limit accommodations
• Off call staff called into work will be paid 24 hours of call pay beginning on the date called in and continue until case load has eased and off call staff are no longer required
• Additionally, the call day or days will be counted toward the triple call pay threshold for the given calendar quarter
• Supplemental / Overtime pay thresholds remain in place, if applicable to the individual employee
• Initially (6 to 12 months) will be on the call schedule 50 % of all days to most fully have the opportunity to learn during organ donor processes
• Performs all responsibilities of the position while promoting a team environment
• Travel by company vehicle, personal vehicle, small and medium sized chartered planes, helicopters, and chartered limousine services required
• Maintains healthy, open, honest, professional relationships with members of the CDT team, hospital staff, donor families, medical examiners/coroners and any other professionals they may interact with in the performance of their duties
• Informs supervisor or director of emergencies and unusual interactions or conflicts involving all those we serve in our broad scope of practice
• Maintains confidentiality when interacting with patients, families, staff and public per CDT policy and applicable industry regulations and standards
• Manages use of time to allow for preparation of educational programs and other department activities when completing assigned tasks
• Accepts responsibility for completing assigned work; seeks assistance from co-workers if needed
• Compliant with department policy regarding scheduled work time, i.e. begins work on time; informs supervisor in the event of change or absence from scheduled time
• Familiar with age parameters for acceptance of donated organs and tissues
• Appropriately rules out organs/tissues that aren’t medically suitable for transplantation
• Documents updates and/or outcomes of all vented referrals, prior to change of shift each business day, in the DonorTrac Electronic Medical Record (DT EMR)
• Accurate and up to date documentation of donor information on active vented referrals to include: Patient and hospital demographics, Admission course and current and past medical and social history, Patient hemodynamics (blood pressures, arterial blood gases, inputs and outputs, etc.), Diagnostic imaging results (CT scans, chest x-rays, ultra sounds, etc.), Infectious disease testing results, Additional donor/referral information as required per CDT and UNOS policy
• Import referral outcomes
• Obtains informed, legal authorization from the families of potential organ/tissue donors
• Follows CDT protocols and practices in line with industry standards and applicable regulations
• Identifies person of highest priority in the legal hierarchy to include first person consent if applicable
• Provides information to and offers the option of donation to potential donor families or shares disclosure information when patient is a 1st person consent donor
• Ensures timely and appropriate support mechanisms for potential donor families
• Acquires accurate medical/social history from person(s) who are knowledgeable about the donor
• Under the guidance of the CDT medical director, collaborates with medical/nursing staff in the clinical management of the potential organ/tissue donor
• Manages organ donor per CDT protocol: Maintains hemodynamic stability (refer to management protocol)
• Ensures that appropriate organ/tissue specific tests are ordered and performed
• Evaluates test results accurately for organ/tissue suitability
• Ensures that donor management is adjusted when appropriate based upon medical data and test results
• Coordinates communication with members of the recovery team and other transplant programs in a timely manner
• Allocates organs to transplant centers per CDT policy and in compliance with UNOS standards
• Enters all donor information accurately into the DonorTrac Electronic Health Record and the UNOS donor record
• Generates all appropriate UNOS potential recipient lists
• Notifies appropriate transplant centers and provides accurate donor and organ specific information
• Places procured, non-transplantable organs for research (with authorization)
• Schedules use of OR in donor facility and communicates special equipment and staffing needs
• Communicates with recipient transplant centers
• Assures appropriate equipment for procurement is available
• Assists in the preservation of organs as required
• Packages organs/tissues per CDT and UNOS policy
• Arranges for transportation of, or delivers, organs to appropriate transplant centers
• The organ procurement coordinator returns to the potential donor hospital within 3 business days
• Provides immediate feedback to hospital personnel involved in the donation
• Evaluates the potential for process improvement
• Attends and participates in daily morning huddles
• Participates in weekly Case Review meeting
• Attends or conferences into all organ donor after action reviews
• Participates in CDT QI process
• Review and completion of organ donor charts
• Documents, notifies, and communicates reportable events to the Director of Clinical Operations, and/or Executive Director
• Must be physically able to lift 75-100 pounds
• Must be able to work extended hours
• Must have the ability to keep accurate records, perform calculations, follow guidelines, draft policies, and perform technical training

Nice To Haves

• Prefer a degree in the health care field (associate’s or bachelor’s)
• Strongly prefer at least one of the following: Prior organ procurement experience, Critical care nursing background, Operating room experience
• Prefer experience with the on-call process
• Prefer previous data entry and computer experience

Responsibilities

• Identification and management of the organ donor
• Placement of the organs
• Operating room responsibilities during the procurement process
• Post organ donation debriefing
• Hospital and community education and development to increase organ and tissue donor awareness
• Participates in a rotating call schedule and carries a smart phone
• Travel by company vehicle, personal vehicle, small and medium sized chartered planes, helicopters, and chartered limousine services
• Maintains healthy, open, honest, professional relationships with members of the CDT team, hospital staff, donor families, medical examiners/coroners and any other professionals they may interact with
• Informs supervisor or director of emergencies and unusual interactions or conflicts
• Maintains confidentiality when interacting with patients, families, staff and public
• Manages use of time to allow for preparation of educational programs and other department activities when completing assigned tasks
• Accepts responsibility for completing assigned work; seeks assistance from co-workers if needed
• Compliant with department policy regarding scheduled work time
• Develops and implements educational plans specific to the needs of each assigned hospital
• Quarterly visits to assigned hospitals and/or as activity dictates
• Constantly seeks methods to improve the donation referral and management process
• Works with hospital staff to coordinate CEU and non-CEU based educational programs
• Participates in the planning of major educational programs
• Provides feedback to hospitals on compliance of routine referral
• Establishes communication with community organizations for the purpose of promoting awareness of organ/tissue donation and transplantation
• Schedules educational programs to meet the needs of local schools
• Establishes communication linkages with religious and community organizations for community service activities
• Collaborates with community service organizations for the purpose of developing organ and tissue donation awareness programs
• Participates in hospital, business, and community sponsored Health and Wellness Fairs
• Contributes articles to and assists with distribution of The Center for Donation and Transplant Newsletter ("The Legacy")
• Familiar with age parameters for acceptance of donated organs and tissues
• Appropriately rules out organs/tissues that aren’t medically suitable for transplantation
• Documents updates and/or outcomes of all vented referrals, prior to change of shift each business day, in the DonorTrac Electronic Medical Record (DT EMR)
• Accurate and up to date documentation of donor information on active vented referrals
• Obtains informed, legal authorization from the families of potential organ/tissue donors
• Follows CDT protocols and practices in line with industry standards and applicable regulations
• Identifies person of highest priority in the legal hierarchy to include first person consent if applicable
• Provides information to and offers the option of donation to potential donor families or shares disclosure information when patient is a 1st person consent donor
• Ensures timely and appropriate support mechanisms for potential donor families
• Acquires accurate medical/social history from person(s) who are knowledgeable about the donor
• Under the guidance of the CDT medical director, collaborates with medical/nursing staff in the clinical management of the potential organ/tissue donor
• Manages organ donor per CDT protocol
• Maintains hemodynamic stability
• Ensures that appropriate organ/tissue specific tests are ordered and performed
• Evaluates test results accurately for organ/tissue suitability
• Ensures that donor management is adjusted when appropriate based upon medical data and test results
• Coordinates communication with members of the recovery team and other transplant programs in a timely manner
• Allocates organs to transplant centers per CDT policy and in compliance with UNOS standards
• Enters all donor information accurately into the DonorTrac Electronic Health Record and the UNOS donor record
• Generates all appropriate UNOS potential recipient lists
• Notifies appropriate transplant centers and provides accurate donor and organ specific information
• Places procured, non-transplantable organs for research (with authorization)
• Schedules use of OR in donor facility and communicates special equipment and staffing needs
• Communicates with recipient transplant centers
• Assures appropriate equipment for procurement is available
• Assists in the preservation of organs as required
• Packages organs/tissues per CDT and UNOS policy
• Arranges for transportation of, or delivers, organs to appropriate transplant centers
• The organ procurement coordinator returns to the potential donor hospital within 3 business days
• Provides immediate feedback to hospital personnel involved in the donation
• Evaluates the potential for process improvement
• Attends and participates in daily morning huddles
• Participates in weekly Case Review meeting
• Attends or conferences into all organ donor after action reviews
• Participates in CDT QI process
• Review and completion of organ donor charts
• Documents, notifies, and communicates reportable events to the Director of Clinical Operations, and/or Executive Director
• Complete other tasks as assigned by the CDT MO
• Attend other meetings as assigned

Benefits

• Excellent health care coverage with no copay at Albany Medical Center providers
• A wide array of services and programs to support emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree