Significant policy efforts to improve rates of consent to organ donation such as Required Request laws have been largely ineffective. Our first organ donation study determined that Health Care Providers (HCPs) actually approached donor-eligible families with reasonable consistency. Unfortunately, the families themselves were more often than not unwilling to agree to donation. This prompted our second and present study, Determinants of Family Consent to Organ Donation. (grant number HS08209-04). This study is the most in-depth study of its kind and employs the most representative sample collected to date. As it nears completion, it suggests many possible interventions that may increase rates of consent among families asked to make these decisions. Our proposed conference will assemble approximately 50 experts from all facets of organ donation policy and practice, including Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) executives, physicians specializing in trauma and end-of-life care, clergy, social workers, bioethicists, organ recipients, and families of donors, to consider the data and develop strategies to guide future policy and research. The one- and one-half-day conference will take place in Cleveland, Ohio in November, 1999. Data and proposed interventions will be presented to all conferees in a briefing book to be distributed well ahead of the conference. This briefing book will be prepared with the assistance of a Steering Committee, whose members will serve as discussants in small working groups to be convened during the conference. During these sessions, groups will consider each of the interventions critically, individually assessing their merits and suggesting alternatives whenever necessary. Conference proceedings will be published through appropriate scholarly venues, and conferees will be asked to consider non-scholarly venues for disseminating additional information, including handbooks for OPOs, HCPs, and organ donation literature for the general public.
