1. UNOS is a private company that contracts with the federal government to manage the nation’s organ transplant system.
2. NBC News says that more than 14,600 people are on the waiting list for a new liver. Last year, roughly 7,100 received a transplant, but more than 1,400 people died waiting.
3. The demand for liver transplants is higher than the supply. To address this issue, patients are ranked so that the sickest patients – based on their MELD scores, which is a prediction of their current risk of death – in a given area receive liver transplants first.
4. Patients in different areas are ranked on different lists. There are 11 transplant regions, which are divided into smaller areas with individual waiting lists. Since some regions may have a higher demand for organs or fewer available organs than others, the location in which a patient lives affects whether they can receive a transplant.
5. Some regions cannot offer transplants until patients are at risk of death within weeks, while others can offer transplants before their situation is that dire. NBC News notes that some patients, like Apple CEO Steve Jobs, even travel to different locations to find a shorter waiting list (Mr. Jobs lived in California, but had a transplant in Tennessee).
6. UNOS has proposed dividing the country into eight – rather than 11 – districts, so that regions are larger, to allow for wider sharing. The organization hopes that with redrawn boundaries, patients with similar MELD scores will be able to receive transplants, regardless of where they live.
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