Emergency Responders

Please note that this infor­ma­tion is intend­ed for emer­gency respon­ders and law enforce­ment. If you reached this page by mis­take, please return to our home­page.

The Role of Emer­gency Respon­ders in Donation

Emer­gency respon­ders and law enforce­ment play a cru­cial role in the tis­sue and eye dona­tion process. As an emer­gency respon­der, you can have a direct impact by noti­fy­ing Iowa Donor Net­work (IDN) of all deaths that occur out­side of a hos­pi­tal. In doing so, you ensure that all Iowans are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to leave a liv­ing lega­cy through tis­sue and eye donation.

Iowa Donor Net­work is com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with your agency to devel­op pro­ce­dures to ensure that all deaths are called in to to IDN with­in a time frame that pre­serves the oppor­tu­ni­ty for dona­tion. Please review the resources and ref­er­ences below and con­tact a mem­ber of our Hos­pi­tal and Part­ner Rela­tion team if you have any ques­tions or would like more infor­ma­tion on devel­op­ing dona­tion ini­ti­a­tion pro­ce­dures for your agency.

To learn more about the impact of dona­tion, please vis­it our Under­stand­ing Dona­tion page.

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Patient Care Reports (Run Reports)

IDN requires a copy of med­ical inter­ven­tions per­formed on poten­tial donors to facil­i­tate organ, tis­sue, and eye dona­tion. There­fore, patient care reports or run reports may be request­ed dur­ing the active dona­tion process or at a lat­er time for donor screen­ing and release of tis­sue for transplant.

Iowa Donor Net­work will pro­vide you with a con­fi­den­tial fax num­ber at the time the patient care report is request­ed. As a health­care pro­fes­sion­al, you are pro­tect­ed by HIPAA sec­tion 164.512 to ​“dis­close pro­tect­ed health care infor­ma­tion to organ pro­cure­ment orga­ni­za­tions or oth­er enti­ties engaged in the pro­cure­ment, bank­ing of trans­plan­ta­tion of cadav­er­ic organs, eyes, or tis­sues for the pur­pose of facil­i­tat­ing organ, eye, or tis­sue dona­tion and transplantation.”

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Addi­tion­al Resources:

Your Role in Dona­tion: A Guide for EMS, Fire & Res­cue, and Law Enforce­ment

Basic Death Noti­fi­ca­tion Infor­ma­tion for EMS

Com­mon Screen­ing Ques­tions for Out of Hos­pi­tal Deaths

Death Noti­fi­ca­tion Trig­ger Card

Appen­dix J of EMS Treat­ment Pro­to­cols

Dis­clo­sure Under HIPAA