Star Tribune
Minnesota transplant centers seek to reduce delays, deaths through donor units
Minnesota’s organ donor agency is hoping to increase transplant surgeries and save more lives by having organs procured at the state’s two largest transplant centers.
LifeSource on Monday announced a reorganization under which deceased donors would be transferred to the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis and Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Transfers to special donor care units at these sites could reduce delays and missed opportunities that occur when organs are procured at community hospitals where donors die, said Kelly White, chief executive of LifeSource. The organization manages organ procurement in Minnesota, the Dakotas and western Wisconsin.
“The gift of organ donation is so scarce here,” she said. “Every opportunity counts for us.”
Minnesota set records in 2022 when centers conducted 1,078 transplants and 179 people donated organs upon their deaths. The number of people who died awaiting transplants in Minnesota also declined from 206 in 2014 to 111 last year, but White said a streamlined procurement process could drive that number lower.
Transplant recipients are matched under a federal system to organs based on whether they have the same blood type and physiology as donors, whether they are at greater need than others on the waiting list and whether they are close enough to receive the organs in time.
What happens next is a scramble. Specialists rush from transplant centers to hospitals to procure kidneys, hearts, lungs and other organs that have been matched to their patients. The travel alone can cause delays, especially if the hospitals are remote or the transplant recipients are in other states.
Community hospitals aren’t as equipped to deal with problems that can leave organs unusable, such as fluid buildup in the lungs when patients die, said Dr. Andrew Adams, executive medical director of solid organ transplantation for M Health Fairview.
“With the advent of donor care units … we can recondition the lungs to bring them back to an optimal status and now those lungs can be used for transplant,” he said.
Donor care units were first tried in St. Louis two decades ago, and research found that they lower costs and increase the number of organs procured per donor. A federal report last year recommended that all 57 U.S. procurement organizations open these units.
About half of deceased donors will be transferred at first to the new units, according to LifeSource’s estimates. Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Hennepin County Medical Center have active transplant programs in Minneapolis and can procure organs on their own.
Grieving relatives also can refuse the transfers, although Adams said many find comfort and closure in having deceased loved ones moved elsewhere. Logistical delays in procurement at community hospitals can prolong the time that brain-dead patients stay on life support, extending relatives’ grief or prompting them to refuse donation.
“Organ donation, from the time they get declared brain dead to the time when organ procurement occurs, sometimes that can be two, three, four days,” Adams said. “That puts the donor family almost in a limbo, like a holding pattern, where they are unable to move forward with the grieving process.”
Mayo already had been transferring in deceased donors this year at LifeSource’s request to help hospitals that had no open surgery suites or lacked experience in organ procurement. The U hospital will phase-in the donor care role before opening a dedicated unit on its West Bank campus next April.
Another benefit of the donor care units is that they will free up surgical and bed space in Minnesota hospitals that have struggled with overcrowding, said Dr. Julie Heimbach, director of Mayo’s transplant center.
“That has come to a head, especially with the pressures that have been placed on hospitals through COVID,” she said.
The units can procure organs and send them to transplant centers or the centers can still send their specialists to do that work, she added.
Researchers have looked for other ways to increase or hasten transplants. Allina Health and LifeSource have tested drone flights to reduce organ transport time. U of M researchers last month reported success in freezing and thawing organs in rats, which could one day dramatically increase the shelf life of human organs for transplant.
Heimbach said it would help for now if more people signed up as donors.
About 70% of Minnesota adults have committed to be organ donors through their drivers licenses or other documents, compared to about 60% nationally, according to LifeSource.
Less than 1% of deaths present opportunities for donation, though. Most donations involve brain death, which occurs when cardiac events or traumatic injuries leave patients with no brain function or ability to breathe independently. Even in that rare form of death, donors can be rejected if they have cancer or their organs have been damaged.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
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